Shidachi
by lembas7
Summary: Daniel is back at the SGC, but his faith in SG1 has been shattered. The threat of the NID grows greater, for they want something, and Daniel is the key. [Sequel to BUSHIDO.]
1. Prologue

Daniel shifted, squinting upward blearily. His glasses were gone - where - ah. Jack. Daniel shifted once more, trying to get comfortable, before he realized that the banking motion of the plane was what had awoken him in the first place. They were preparing to land in Denver.

Daniel had fallen asleep not long after they'd taken off from Tel Aviv, waking briefly and sporadically several times only to drop back into sleep. His head was aching, as was his shoulder. The joint was sore from the workout of the day before, and letting him know it. His head had been a continual ache ever since he'd cracked it against the ground, but the changes in altitude had aggravated the pain.

Daniel groggily forced his eyes to stay open, feeling disoriented. Between the length of the flight and the change in time zone, he had no idea how much time had passed, or what time of day he was going to be entering when he stepped out of the plane.

Sam was dozing beside him - and slightly _on_ him - and Daniel was careful not to dislodge her when he slowly straightened. Teal'c was absorbed in kel'no'reem, while Jack was frowning at a newspaper crossword.

"To throw out a window?" he muttered to himself. "Why throw out a window? Did it break?"

"Defenistrate," Daniel muttered, rubbing his eyes.

"Say what?" Jack asked, looking over at him. He reached across and handed Daniel his glasses.

"To throw something out a window. Defenistrate," Daniel repeated.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Do you even have to try?" he asked, waving the crossword in the air. Daniel smiled tiredly, without answering.

A man came out of the cockpit, and said, "We're preparing to land. Get strapped in."

"The military version of, 'Please rebuckle your seatbelts, and make sure your seat-backs and tray-tables are in their upright and lock position'," Jack sing-songed as soon as the man turned back to the front of the plane.

"Faster than commercial flight, though," was Sam's sleep-blurred contribution. "What time is it?"

"It'll be midmorning in Denver. We should be on base in time for lunch," Jack retorted happily. He was in an unquenchably lively mood - Daniel was home!

The archaeologist in question looked at him grumpily, obviously not sharing his glee.

"As of now, the debriefing is set for 1400," Jack continued. Daniel yawned. "Try not to fall asleep on Hammond," he finished, a large grin wreathing his face. To Sam and Teal'c, he looked lighter and happier than they'd seen him in a long time. To Daniel, he just looked repulsively chipper. Daniel hated that word - chipper. It screamed perky blonde teenage cheerleader; and also, somehow, gave him the impression of a squirrel. However, at the moment it was the only accurate description. Daniel longed for coffee - maybe after having some, the world would start to make more sense.

He yawned again, covering his mouth politely.

The landing was smooth, the airstrip they disembarked on deserted. "My car, I drive," said Jack peremptorily as they approached the truck. As Sam and Daniel were too tired to put up more than a token protest, and mutter vague fears for life, limb and wellbeing, Jack slid behind the wheel while Teal'c sat shotgun. The two scientists piled in the backseat, and were soon sleeping again.

Jack couldn't help his eyes lingering on Daniel in the rearview mirror. Sam was leaning all over him, and murmured in her sleep whenever he shifted - unwilling to let him go anywhere without her. Teal'c too kept taking frequent glances into the back of the truck. The hour-plus ride into Colorado Springs took longer than it should have, Jack wanting the comfortable feeling of unity to last as long as possible.

By the time they reached the base, Jack had to force himself to wake his kids. Both of them were overworked, and it was a safe bet from his deep unconsciousness that Daniel's stressful habits hadn't changed, even if his address had.

"Coffee," Jack murmured tantalizingly.

Daniel straighted. "Where?" It was the first intelligible word out of his mouth since Teal'c had been gently and forcefully trying to wake him.

"Commissary," Sam promised.

Together, they managed to lead the snappish, not-quite-awake linguist past the sign-in and into the base. Once in the commissary with a cup of caffeine cradled in front of him, Daniel seemed to perk up, and actually notice the many people who were stopping by to say hello.

"Hey, Dr. Jackson!"

Daniel half-turned. "Feretti!"

"We ain't due to ship out for another few hours, and when we were in the infirmary we heard the rumor that you were back. Turns out it wasn't a rumor after all!"

Daniel smiled. "It's good to see you too."

Feretti grinned. "I just wanted to see if I could find you before Frasier tightened the medical noose. I gotta go, but the rest of SG-2 will be swingin' by to say aloha before we 'gate outta here."

Happy goodbyes, secure in the knowledge that they would meet again soon, were exchanged - and this was only the first. In the following two hours, SG-1 lounged in the commissary, smugly showing Daniel off, though he didn't realize it. It seemed like sooner or later everyone showed up to welcome the linguist back; jarheads, clerks in supply, SF's and grunts. All merriment halted with the separate arrivals of two formidable presences - Hammond and Dr. Frasier put in short appearances at the impromptu gathering.

SG-1, spearheaded by Sam, started making farewell noises half an hour before the debriefing. Quite frankly, Daniel was looking overwhelmed and they knew he would want some time to pull himself together before recounting the past few days to the general.

They made their way back to Daniel's office, which hadn't been touched courtesy of SG-1's fierce protectiveness of the area. Anyone who might have considered even dusting while SG-1 was offworld knew that they wouldn't last an hour past the flagship team's return.

Daniel knew he hadn't done a very good job of hiding his surprise on seeing the office untouched. While he had dreaded seeing the room converted into something else, it also raised an uncomfortable question. Did SG-1 want him back?

Asked and answered, Daniel thought wryly. He was back, and he would bet his life savings that Jack knew both how difficult it had been to walk away the first time, and how much harder it would be to leave twice.

But Daniel had no idea what he wanted, at this point. The SGC was greater than anything he'd ever experienced in his life, with the exception of his marriage. Nothing came close to going through the gate, and touching history. But – that had not been a part of the Stargate program for a long time. And he also had doubts about the rest of SG-1.

At the moment, though, the rest of SG-1 was looking at him, barely able to conceal the grins on their faces. Daniel let a slightly suspicious expression cross his face. "Trying to tell me something?" he asked, a tiny smile curving his lips.

Jack stepped forward, and the seriousness on his features took Daniel by surprise. "We want you to come back to the SGC, and SG-1," he said.

As the shock of this pronouncement hit him, Daniel felt vaguely better about having the goals of his former teammates out in the open. His face reflected the gravity of the situation, smile fading away.

He was quiet for so long, his face uncharacteristically expressionless, that the other members of SG-1 caught themselves exchanging worried glances.

"Daniel?"

Sam's gentle voice broke through his reverie, and the archaeologist blinked.

"It's almost time for the briefing," he croaked after a moment, glancing at his watch.

"Sure," Jack forced, his light tone strained. It was clear to him now that things were much more complicated than he had let himself believe.

- - - - - - -

Yea, I'm back. Just a little tidbit for you. More next post, maybe? ï Life is equalizing, but I make no promises. Reviews, however, always inspire me to find more time . . . . (coughHINTcough)


	2. Chapter 1

Hammond glanced at the briefing room before entering. Jack and Daniel on one side, Sam and Teal'c on the other, with Daniel firmly ensconced next to the General's seat, on the opposite side of the door. SG-1 was taking no chances on him bolting, like the last – memorable – incident in this room.

The archaeologist, despite the sling and an assortment of bruises on exposed skin, seemed well, if a little subdued. He was tanned, his hair lightened by the sun, and he hadn't lost weight or muscle mass. If Hammond hadn't known better, he would have thought Daniel simply tired from the long flight.

But the blue eyes looking out from his face were ancient and pained, the archaeologist's turmoil clear to anyone who looked. And SG-1 was most definitely looking.

Abruptly realizing that he was lingering just outside the door, Hammond walked in and sat down, smiling gently at the man whose absence had drained the life and soul from the SGC.

"It's good to see you again, Dr. Jackson," he said.

Daniel smiled in return. "Thank you," he said.

Hammond then looked to the rest of the team. Jack was, of course, overjoyed with having the linguist back, but something had put a slight damper on his happiness. There was a worry line creasing his forehead. When Hammond's gaze rested on him, however, all signs of anxiety were wiped away, the professional mask donned. Sam was smiling a little, unashamed about her joy. Teal'c's face held a relaxed and serene expression Hammond had only seen the Jaffa display with his family.

"All right. Colonel?"

"Yes sir." Jack glanced around the table. "We made relatively good time to Ein Gedi. Once we got there, we realized that we were too late, and as you suspected the NID were trailing Daniel - "

"Excuse me?" The archaeologist's brows shot up. Sam rolled her eyes, and Jack winced a little, realizing his gaffe. "General?" Daniel stepped smoothly into the gap, with a precision that had been essential in many diplomatic dealings for the SGC.

Hammond focused on the linguist. "Someone purporting to be a member of SG-1 attempted to gain access to the belongings you asked me to keep for you in secure storage. As of yet, we have no idea how this person gained knowledge of their whereabouts."

"NID."

"Most probably," Hammond replied.

"Definitely." No one could gainsay Daniel's certainty. But the General needed an explanation.

"Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel glanced at the General. "I was jumped by an NID operative in Tel Aviv," he admitted. "He seemed a little – desperate."

Jack's face was like stone, and Hammond could tell that he would be sniping away at that dismissive comment, getting the whole story, before the day was out.

"What happened at Ein Gedi, Colonel?" Hammond asked. "I gather that Dr. Jackson didn't fall in the dig," he added, seeing anger cloud Jack's eyes when he gestured to the sling.

"The NID got there ahead of us," Jack gritted. "The night before we arrived, two men snuck onto the dig. The archaeologists believe, for the most part, that they were looters. The head of the dig, and at least two of the professors know that it was more than that."

"Dr. Jackson? Are these people trustworthy?"

Daniel shrugged. "When it comes to their dig, and the safety of others, most definitely. Regardless, they don't know enough to do any real damage."

Hammond was surprised. He'd known that Daniel had changed, grown older and wiser, but the linguist's capacity for trust seemed to have been broken. The General could see from their body language that the rest of SG-1 knew it too. Daniel, on the other hand, still kept himself separate. He was closed off from them, refusing to read the signals he knew were flying back and forth over the table. His posture and expression gave no clues, which was a disturbing warning signal in itself.

Hammond nodded. "Major?"

Sam picked up the thread where it had left off. "We arrived at the dig to find that one of the NID agents had been taken to the nearest hospital, in Madasa, for treatment. Apparently there was a struggle for the gun he had with him, and he lost. The other was rendered unconscious and until we arrived, the intention was to bring him to the police in Jerusalem. We have him now, in secure lockup."

"I see. Teal'c?"

"We stayed additional days at the dig, to ensure the NID threat was not greater than it appeared." _And to persuade Daniel Jackson to return to the SGC_.

Hammond read between the lines. He nodded once. "Dr. Jackson, did you have any contact with these NID agents?"

Daniel's face held a rueful expression. "Yes, sir. I spoke with one of them several times, to find out what they were doing in Ein Gedi. Apparently, the NID quickly caught wind of my resignation, and decided that they wanted me to work for them in Area 51. I refused, but that didn't go over very well."

"There were things said which imply that we might have another rogue agent in the SGC, sir." Carter grimaced.

"And there was – what, the blue trout?" asked O'Neill, glancing at Daniel.

The linguist rolled his eyes. "Red herring, Jack," he returned.

"It's all fish to me."

For a moment, when the tiny grin appeared, things seemed almost normal. Then it was gone, and reality rushed into the void. "The NID appears to have discovered a cylindrical tube that they claim is a clean energy source far surpassing the naquadah generator." Daniel's voice was grave. "According to the NID agent, they want me to translate inscriptions on the cover. Inscriptions that none of their exceedingly resourceful linguists can seem to get a handle on." The dry tone spoke volumes in disbelief and suspicion.

"Colonel?"

"He didn't lie," Jack grunted vehemently. With Daniel staring at him that way, neither would he. "But he's probably just a flunky."

"Could such a generator actually exist?" Hammond questioned Carter.

"It's definitely possible," Sam responded. "Even with the technological advances we've gained so far, there is a lot we simply don't know."

The General frowned. "The NID agent might have more information we haven't asked about."

"I do not believe so," Teal'c stated.

Hammond raised a brow. The Jaffa seemed supremely confident. "Regardless, I want to know everything he knows. Major, find out as much as you can about this generator. I'm going to make a few calls." And Jack, as he well knew, would be doing some digging of his own. "It's good to have you back, Dr. Jackson."

"I'll get back to you on that," Daniel's reply was soft. Nevertheless, everyone in the room heard the quiet, unsure words.

"While you're here," Hammond continued as if he hadn't heard, "I know Dr. Frasier is anxious to see you." Daniel raised a suspicious brow, but the General's next comment completely blindsided him. "She called Cassie as soon as she heard you were back, and promised to see you in person today. It was all she could do to persuade Cass not to cut school and hitch a ride to the Mountain."

Daniel nodded, another bittersweet smile twitching the corners of his mouth. "I guess I'll head down to the Infirmary, then."

"Sweet," Jack mouthed as Daniel left the room.

"I heard that," Daniel said clearly from out in the hall.

Jack grinned. "Nice move, General."

Hammond simply said, "Good job, Jack." He, too, was grinning as he turned back to his office.

Daniel, however, was not smiling. Jack saw him rub his temples tiredly, before he reached over and tugged irritably at the sling strap that was rubbing against his sore shoulder.

They walked side by side, in silence, to the Infirmary. Jack, glancing often at the quiet linguist next to him, wondered how the hell he would convince Daniel that coming back to SG-1 was the best thing for everyone. He had no idea how he could regain Daniel's trust.

When they reached the Infirmary, Sam and Teal'c were already waiting. When Daniel walked into Dr. Frasier's domain, she gave him a disapproving, appraising look. Daniel flushed.

"Why is it," Janet began in a low voice, "That whenever you turn up, you qualify as one of the walking wounded?"

Daniel opened his mouth, but Jack got there before him. "Aww, c'mon, Doc, the first time you see him in a month and you're all over his case? Whatever happened to a joyous welcome home?"

Janet frowned at Jack. "I saw him in the commissary, and politely ignored the sling and bruises. You're on my turf now, Colonel. I'd advise you to watch yourself."

Jack winced, knowing the pint-sized powermonger's wrath. He raised his hands, attempting to placate. "Watching. Like a hawk, with beady little eyes."

Janet murmured something that sounded like, "Mother-hen, more like." Jack stiffened, and glared at her, but the scorching stare Janet leveled in his direction had him turning his gaze to the toes of his black combat-boots, sneering unintelligibly under his breath.

Nevertheless, the rest of the team stayed in the Infirmary while Janet led Daniel to a bed and pulled the curtain, gesturing for him to take off his sling while she pulled on a pair of gloves.

Daniel sat on the bed, listening to Sam, Jack and Teal'c talk about the happenings on base while Janet gently probed both his shoulder and head. "I want you to stay overnight for observation," she informed him once he had his shirt back on, and Sam was helping him with the sling.

Daniel frowned at Janet. "Is that really necessary? The concussion is days old, and I promise I won't do any heavy lifting," he said, only half-joking. He stood, fiddling with the sling's strap. Sam tossed a concerned look at Jack, who simply raised a brow and nodded at her, indicating that he would take care of this.

Janet leveled her patented glare at him. "I can tell that you used that arm excessively sometime within the past two days. The entire area is inflamed, bruised, and probably sore. Would you like to explain to me what you were doing?"

Daniel looked away, his hand dropping to his side, and Janet huffed. Jack cut in, "Hey Doc, didn't Daniel leave something the last time he was here?"

Janet gave Jack the look of one goaded beyond endurance, which elapsed into understanding. "Don't go anywhere," she ordered sternly, turning on her heel and marching into her office.

Daniel was obviously puzzled. "Jack?"

Jack opened his mouth to respond, but Janet's speedy return – obviously intended to insure that her patient didn't slip out of her grasp and out of the mountain while he was at it – prevented him.

Janet carefully held out Senichi's steel katana, resting on her palms. Daniel's face paled alarmingly at the sight of the weapon extended toward him, and he sat down hard on the bed.

"Daniel?"

Jack's worried voice rang in his ears, someone was gripping his shoulders, hard, and Daniel grunted as his left side protested. The pressure eased, and Daniel shook his head slightly. Worried faces were staring at him from all sides, and he gritted, "I'm fine."

Turning his attention to Teal'c, he glanced momentarily at the blade the Jaffa now held. Janet had thrust it at him and hurried to Daniel's side when he had wavered and practically collapsed, butt-first, onto the bed.

"I left that here?" The voice was casual, only slightly strained, his expression one of realization. But gazing into the blue depths of his eyes, one could see a kaelidascope of emotions. Shock, pain, horror, and – revulsion?

Jack was now openly worried. Teal'c's less-than-level stare conveyed his concern to his team leader. Something was very wrong.

"Yes," Janet said. "Daniel, do you feel dizzy at all? Lightheaded, nauseaus?"

"I'm fine." It didn't sound convincing, so Daniel cleared his throat and repeated it. "I'm fine."

He stood, tugging again on the sling. Janet's mouth set in a mulish line. "In light of this, I definitely want you to stay here tonight."

"No," Daniel replied firmly.

Janet raised a brow. "This is non-negotiable," she said firmly.

Daniel shrugged. "I'm not on an SG team, and I'm not employed by the SGC. You want to keep me here, you're going to have to lock me up." There was a slight, surprising challenge in his tone that took Dr. Frasier aback.

"Of course he's not staying here tonight," Jack interjected. "I'll watch him. The sheets in the spare room are clean, and I vacuumed – uh, sometime this month."

"We'll all be making sure he doesn't overdo it," Sam added, relief in her posture.

"Indeed," Teal'c contributed.

Daniel glanced warily at them, but openly resisting would have ensured a night in the Mountain's medical facility.

Janet looked from one to the other, and sighed. As always, when SG-1 worked together they could surmount any odds. She moved to one of the many glass-door cabinets and reached for a bottle. "Taken with a meal," she reminded when she finished writing out a prescription for the records and had instructed them all, very clearly, on what Daniel would and would not do. "No alcohol," she added.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Rain on the parade, why don't'cha?" he asked witheringly.

The expected smile was unaccountably tense.

"Doc?" Jack asked, surprised.

Janet glanced over to the door, where Daniel was sitting, talking quietly to Teal'c and Sam. She lowered her voice. "Did you notice how Daniel acted when I insisted he stay?"

Jack frowned. "It was a bit - "

"Extreme?" Janet shook her head in frustration. "I'd thought that Daniel had been able to look past the Ma'chello incident -"

"Excuse me?" Jack interrupted loudly. His entire bearing radiated fury. Three heads jerked in their direction. "What exactly is he supposed to look past?" Jack hissed, glancing at Daniel. The archaeologist was slow to turn his attention back to the other members of the team. Jack shifted slightly so that his back was to the three by the door. "The misdiagnosis? The so-called _care_ he received from both you and Mackenzie? The drugs, the - "

"Colonel!" Janet's voice was low, and intense. The doctor closed her eyes for a moment. Jack subsided. "I'd thought he'd managed to deal with that incident," Frasier admitted. "After awhile, he wasn't wary around the infirmary. Granted, he holds no love for Dr. Mackenzie, but I worked to earn back his faith. I thought I had succeeded, but – Do you see how bad things could become if Daniel doesn't trust his primary-care physician enough to tell me when he's hurting, when something's wrong?"

Jack's eyes widened at the implication, a frown descending as he turned the facts over in his mind. "I'll talk to him," was what he finally said. But Janet's worried gaze remained fixed on Daniel as the team left.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wow! Can I just say, the number of people who crawled out of the woodwork to review on this is frankly amazing! (I'm quite used to being forgotten as soon as I've made like a good little author and posted.) I'm heartened, and sincerely appreciate all your urgings and thoughtful reviews.

Point 2: Several people have inquired into the meaning of the word "Shidachi". It means, roughly translated, "defender". And there may, or may not, be an ulterior motive in my titling of this story. I'll let you guess. (mysterious smile)

As requested, here is the "More, More, More!"


	3. Chapter 2

Daniel's silence was, Jack admitted to himself, downright creepy. Normally, the linguist would be talking their collective ears off about everything under the sun, which had seemingly only shone in Ein Gedi for the last month.

Jack's eyes strayed from the road to once more contemplate the brooding archaeologist. There was no doubt about it; Daniel was having what Jack liked to call a 'Deep Thoughts' moment.

The focus of those thoughts was probably not out the windshield, Jack mused wryly, or out the passenger side window, which were the two locations where Daniel's gaze wandered. No, the focus was more likely back in Ein Gedi. Jack snorted to himself. He could tell wishful thinking from the tactical mindset he'd developed over the years, and that was a seriously unrealistic thought. If anything, Daniel's mind was still back in the Mountain, going over the events of the last few days, contemplating the changes he saw, and wondering if they were permanent. Jack would do his best to see that they were.

Jack himself was quiet during the ride. He knew that he stood a better chance of getting Daniel to open up if he waited for backup. Sam and Teal'c were only a few miles behind, and if Jack knew Carter, that distance was decreasing. Exponentially.

Proof of that observation was rendered a mere ten minutes later, and Jack pulled into his driveway with Sam nearly rear-ending him in her enthusiasm, but the Colonel only grinned at his 2IC. He completely understood – after all, Daniel was back. Those three words held the key to everything, and told the crippled remainder of SG-1 that everything could be worked out.

Slamming the car door behind him, Jack preceded the rest of his team across the lawn to the house, noting how Sam and Teal'c stood close to Daniel but avoided crowding him. He frowned a little. They were giving the linguist the distance they thought he needed – but perhaps that was what was wrong from the beginning. As a team, they had backed off when they should have stuck together, stepped away when they ought to have clung tighter. The support gradually formed cracks underneath Daniel, and hadn't been able to take the stress of incidents like – oh, say, Euronda, for example. And because of the crumbling from within, everything else had collapsed.

"Uh, sir? Are you going to let us in?"

Jack started. "Course, Carter." He ignored the minor fact that he had been standing, staring at his door with his key in his hand as he worked all of this out. "Just thought we'd enjoy the weather for a bit."

"Consider it enjoyed," Daniel murmured, and Jack caught a slight glint of humor before Daniel glanced away. It was a beautiful day – but nearly over by now. Jack threw the door open and said grandly, "Welcome. Food?"

"Ah, I thought we'd order out," Carter said evasively.

Jack threw her an affronted look. "I can cook."

"Of course you can, sir." Carter's anxious eyes held a devious twinkle as she soothed ruffled feathers.

"I can!" Jack insisted.

There was a muffled snort from the direction of a certain close-mouthed linguist, and Teal'c's face softened slightly. Jack caught the grin before it could get very far, but Sam didn't even bother, smiling broadly.

"All right, all right," Jack grumbled happily.

"Half plain, half everything?" Carter called, making her way into the kitchen, Teal'c hot on her heels.

"The number's on the wall by the phone." Jack's attention was focused on Daniel, as the archaeologist stood stiffly in the center of the living room. "Coat?" he asked, ignoring the rumble of Teal'c's voice in the kitchen and Sam's soft counterpoint.

Daniel started, shot Jack a look and took his coat off. "Shoes?" Jack pressed gently. Daniel's lips thinned, but he toed off his sneakers and sat on the couch.

"Danny?"

"Jack."

Finally – words! Well, one word. Better than nothing, Jack reasoned, and proceeded to take all he could get. "Are – are you okay?" The delivery was awkward, but the feelings were there.

Daniel generously accepted the question in the spirit it was asked, and answered with staggeringly open honesty. "I don't know."

Jack sucked in a breath. This was it, then. "I'm sorry," he said roughly, unsure of what else he could do.

Daniel sighed, defeated. "I know."

"It's not enough, is it?" Jack's voice low, pained.

Daniel turned to him, stricken and disquieted. Taking a deep breath he gritted out, "No."

Jack felt his heart lurch.

"Being sorry, in the long run, has never changed anything," Daniel continued. Hope stirred, and Jack's gaze zeroed in on Daniel's face, seeing how much of an effort it was for him to demand this, nearly positive that he would be rejected, that it was too much to ask. But nevertheless, refusing to back down. "So," he breathed, clearing his throat before continuing more strongly, "What are you going to do about it?"

Jack looked at him steadily. "I'm going to fix it."

Daniel stared at him in disbelief, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. "H- How?" he finally managed.

"All I need is a chance."

Daniel looked at him pensively, and started as a voice behind him said quietly, "Just a chance, Daniel?"

Swinging around in surprise, Daniel saw Sam and Teal'c hovering in the doorway to the kitchen. "I too desire an opportunity to make amends," Teal'c intoned solemnly.

Daniel took a step back, his knees colliding with the couch. He sat down, hard, and still halfway unable to believe that they were doing this, trying to make it work again, trying to get back something he had accepted as lost for good.

"Well, Daniel?" Jack asked softly, after several minutes of silence.

The archaeologist looked them all over, closing his mouth and pursing his lips. Finally, he nodded. "Yes," he said.

Jack whooped loudly in relief, and Sam grinned. Even Teal'c's lips curled. Daniel gave them a tentative smile that had the others beaming in delight. "I'll call Hammond," Jack said exuberantly.

Daniel's face froze. "Are you sure?" he said, uncertainly.

Jack smiled broadly, but he did a double-take on seeing the linguist's contained posture. Daniel did not look happy. "Danny?" he asked quietly.

The other man wouldn't meet his eyes. "I – I don't think it would be a great idea for me to rejoin SG-1 just yet," he said in a rush.

The room quieted.

"Why, Daniel?"

Sam, her blue eyes full of compassion, of a need to understand. No recriminations, no accusations.

"I just – I think it would be better if we got used to this for a bit before we jump right in," Daniel said, much softer. "I mean – this is all so – new." Their relationship was new. "It's not as solid as it was. Can we really go out there and face the Goa'uld and – and who knows what – when we're not sure how each other will react?"

And they all understood. This new bond had barely been conceived, and was still fragile, as delicate as spider silk. Too precious to risk off-world, in a galaxy that had and would do its best to rip them apart.

The argument was terrifyingly accurate, and logical. They all understood.

"It's okay, Danny," Jack soothed, sitting next to the linguist on the couch, Sam on his other side. "We understand." A quick glance at the others revealed that they understood, and agreed.

"We can build up to it," Sam confirmed, smile gentle.

Daniel smiled back.

"General?" The archaeologist, astrophysicist and Jaffa all looked to Jack as he spoke into the phone. The colonel smiled at them all as he relayed the news to Hammond. "Daniel wants to come back to the SGC."

- - - - - - - - - -

Wow, sorry about the delay. Everyone has been remarkable about prodding me to continue, and I want to thank you all for it. The lag in posting can be fully attributed to 3 things – exams, my LAEVA DEI fic refusing to be back-burnered, and a reasonable confusion as to what was actually going to happen in this fic. All of the above have been resolved, yippee!

On a closing note, I wanted to tell each and every one of my reviewers that, quite simply, YOU GUYS ROCK!! Not a day has gone by without me receiving a review on this fic, which I find frankly amazing. I remain convinced that my reviewers are some of the coolest people on the planet. Go you, and thanks so much!!


	4. Chapter 3

Daniel gazed at his office, unable to believe that it really hadn't been touched since his precipitous departure over a full month ago. Everything was _exactly_ as he'd left it, and he thought wryly that Jack, Sam and Teal'c knew him too well.

But reflecting on the conversation that had occurred at Jack's two nights ago, he retracted that thought. It had been there, in all of their postures and expressions. They hadn't known if he would return, had been afraid that they'd pushed too much, broken the once-solid friendship beyond repair.

Even Daniel didn't know how much of their friendship was left. He too was wary of pushing, had nearly lost his nerve demanding that the others change. He would never ask them to do something he was unwilling to do himself. But he'd wanted to see if they could make it work again, had given in to the gut-deep longing for connection and closeness of friendship.

He'd been so sure that they would turn away, so sure they didn't believe it worth the effort.

He still didn't know if it had been the right decision.

Jack was the mother-hen from hell, with Sam and Teal'c coming in close behind, tying for second.

Daniel was happy that they were making the time to see him, to talk and reconnect, even if he could barely get anything done in the meantime.

"Can I have that book?" Daniel waved vaguely at Jack. He'd been allowed to dispense with the sling the day before, and was enjoying his somewhat stiff mobility. Janet had also told him that he was on downtime for the next two weeks, but she cut him a bit of slack and let him come to base to straighten things out.

"Which one?" The colonel was surrounded by books. Dozens of tomes, some just stacks of parchment or stapled computer printouts, were precariously stacked _everywhere_.

"Red leather cover, black embossing on the cover." It was in Russian, so he didn't bother with the title.

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"

"There are hundreds of books in here," Jack pointed out patiently, a little grin on his face when the linguist looked up at him over the edge of the tome held reverently in careful hands.

"You're right on top of the one I want," Daniel told him solemnly.

Jack gazed around himself blankly for several seconds, and heard his name.

"Yes, Daniel?"

"I was being literal," the linguist informed him. "You're sitting on it."

Jack was sure he hadn't imagined the mischievous twinkle in the linguist's eye, and grinned as Daniel raised the edge of the text to cover his own smile.

Shifting his weight, Jack handed the book to Daniel, who took it with thanks and then carted both texts over to the cluttered table, where he commenced flipping through them rapidly.

"Whatcha doin'?" Jack asked.

"Just a little cross-confirmation," Daniel murmured, fingers skimming over the print. "SG-8 brought back several ceramic jars that are lined with unusual ores which prevent scanning by X-Ray and MRI. There was one word stamped across the seal, and if I've translated it correctly . . . ."

Daniel frowned, a line appearing between his brows. He leant closer. "'Ulu-Toyo'n'," he quoted. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, sitting back.

"Which means?"

Jack looked mulish, so Daniel hastily replied, "Given the clues thus far, I think it's a bad idea to open them. They're made of such primitive material that the probability of these jars containing technology is relatively low. In fact - "

Scrutinizing the script he had copied from the jars, Daniel bent low, muttering to himself. He straightened with an alarmed exclamation.

"What?" Jack jumped at the noise, and grabbed wildly in an attempt to catch the various books he had knocked off the table in his surprise.

Daniel didn't notice, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully. ""Ulu Toyo'n, according to the Yakut Indians of Siberia, was malevolent spirit. He created the Yakut and gifted them with fire, as well as one of their three souls. He also ruled the lower world."

"Lower world?" Jack asked, staring at Daniel warily. "As in, Earth? Or as in hell?"

"Maybe," Daniel murmured, throwing him a nervous glance.

Jack correctly interpreted the look. "That's good enough for me," he said, moving to Daniel's phone. Minutes later, the jars were ordered under lock and key, with all biohazard precautions in place.

As he turned from the phone, Jack caught sight of Daniel's face – the amazement there twisted his heart.

"What?" he asked.

"You – you believe me?"

Jack swore internally at Daniel's incredulity. "Yea," he said gently. "You know what you're doing, Daniel. You're a hell of a lot smarter than me," he ignored the linguist's uncomfortable flush, "and you're damn good at your job. If you think those jars are a possible hazard, I'd be an idiot to ignore you."

Politeness kept them both silent, refraining from pointing out the truth of Jack's last statement. "Carter has plans for lunch, I hear," Jack lightly switched topic.

Daniel grinned. "I'll see you in the commissary?" he asked, but Jack could sense the effort he put into maintaining the calm banter.

"Sure," he responded. The linguist really needed space; he'd give him a bit. Maybe. "See you there in five!"

He sauntered out of Daniel's office to the shocked exclamation of, "What time is it? Oh, no!"

Jack smiled. His thoughts turned to Daniel's surprised expression, and his mouth twisted. There was little he could do to undo the damage of the past year. His month in the desert had done a little to heal Daniel, but the linguist had nearly reverted back to the self-contained, shy young man who had figured out the Stargate.

Sam's latest attempt to coax Daniel to them was, in Jack's mind, perfectly set up. Casual, and giving them all a chance to interact, find their feet in conversation.

The klaxons, as usual, took everyone by surprise. Three teams – SG-4, SG-9, and SG-6 – were off-world. Jack pressed himself against the wall as SF's pounded down the hall toward him.

When he reached the control room, he found Carter, Teal'c and Hammond already there. Daniel arrived just behind him. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Sam murmured, frowning. Her fingers were speeding across the keys. She turned in her chair, confused. Jack didn't like it when the Stargate's technical expert was befuddled. "No one's dialing in," she said.

"No incoming wormhole? Why did the - " Daniel froze in the act of asking a question, face pensive.

"The iris is shut, but there's no one punching in coordinates," Sam murmured. "Sir, someone broke through the internal locks on the system!" Carter was outraged. "It's almost as if someone triggered the alarm on purpose - "

"Sam, where's SG-8?" Daniel asked, his voice calm. Too calm.

"They should be getting their post-mission physicals, but I saw Major Thurman headed toward the elevator, he said he was going to the commissary," she answered.

"Daniel Jackson?"

At Teal'c's somewhat alarmed query, Jack turned to the linguist. Who, with a venomous comment that Jack couldn't decipher, had rushed out of the room.

"Sir, I recommend you lockdown the infirmary." With that, Jack didn't hesitate in following, and the steps he heard behind him let him know that the rest of his team wasn't far behind. Daniel, however, hadn't lost any of his speed while playing in the desert – he threw open the door to the stairwell and rushed headlong down the stairs.

Jack poured on the speed, and moments later was hurtling down the stairs less than half a flight behind the linguist. "Jack, what level did the SF's say they were going to lock away the jars from P2Z-729?"

Jack was impressed that he was able to run and shout clearly at the same time. "Nineteen!" he huffed.

Daniel pulled up short, and to Jack's surprise he waited until the rest of the team joined him, instead of bursting into the corridor.

"Danny?"

The linguist was obviously concerned, but about what, Jack couldn't tell. "The amphora brought back by SG-8 mentioned a god -"

"Goa'uld," Teal'c interrupted.

Daniel nodded. "The jars are tightly sealed. I don't know exactly what's in them, but - "

"Whatever it is can't be good," Jack finished. He didn't have to see the Carter's face to know that she was thinking of Osiris. "Why would SG-8 be in on this?"

Daniel shrugged helplessly. "I'm only guessing, Jack. Thurman might be at the commissary right now."

"Or we could have a foothold situation," Jack murmured. If Daniel had really believed that Thurman was sitting in the commissary, he wouldn't have run out of the control room in a dead panic. He knew more than he was letting on, and Jack knew it, but he also knew that Daniel hadn't figured it out yet, or he would have told them what he felt they had to know. "You armed?"

Daniel shook his head. Teal'c, ever prepared, handed him a zat. "Teal'c, point," Jack ordered. "Carter, you got our six. Danny?"

The linguist nodded, and they waited in silence as Teal'c eased open the door and slid into the corridor. With snap precision, the rest of the team fell into position, almost as if they'd never been apart.

They moved swiftly toward the storage room, Teal'c holding up a hand as he peered around the corner. "There are two guards," he hissed. "I cannot tell if they are dead or merely unconscious."

"Worst-case scenario," Jack rapped out. "Go."

The Jaffa cautiously led them into the corridor, and Daniel and Sam checked the still forms of two SF's. Jack could tell the man Carter was checking was dead, his neck at an unnatural angle. She caught his eye and shook her head. "Danny?"

"Pulse." Daniel's eyes were tense. "He's unconscious, shallow breathing. There's a bit of blood, but I think he'll be okay for a little while. He needs to get to the infirmary."

"That's where the rest of SG-8 is," Sam pointed out.

Jack swore silently. "With any luck, that situation's contained," he hissed. "No time to worry about it now – we need to keep Thurman from opening those jars."

Stepping forward, Jack took point, Teal'c automatically falling back to guard their six. Daniel was right behind him, Carter on his heels.

The lights were on, harshly illuminating the aisles of stacked crates and labeled remnants of the worlds they had visited. This storeroom was relatively small, and had only ten aisles. Spreading out, the team split, a person per aisle, combing through the piles of boxes packed with strange devices.

A flurry of movement caught Daniel's eye and he turned, seeing something dark flit across the end of his aisle, heading right, to the rest of his team. He took two quick steps forward before something grabbed him by his sore shoulder and whirled him around.

It had been Thurman, once. "Luke," he said calmly, ignoring the way his heart was beating too fast. "Luke, it's Daniel."

"_Daniel_." The voice was grating, as rough as ground glass, and disturbingly cold.

"Luke, what happened?" he asked, pretending that he couldn't tell that there was something wrong, that Thurman had been changed, somehow. Ignoring the Beretta pointed dead-center on his heart.

A wiry, short man, Thurman was normally a staid individual with a dry sense of humor that shone through his outward impassivity. His blond hair was streaked with brown, his green eyes normally sparking with life now clouded and dimmed.

He didn't receive an answer, and as Thurman stepped toward him, he maintained his distance, taking only one step back. He didn't drop his eyes, instead focusing on Thurman's chest, giving the impression of maintaining eye contact without locking his gaze with the other man's.

Knowing that he was backing toward the end of the aisle, Daniel's options were limited. Thurman's face tensed, and Daniel moved before he could think. He shouted, "Jack!" and hurled himself to the side, firing the zat.

Not only did the weapon not have an effect on Thurman, it appeared to energize him. He sucked in a breath and stood straighter, finger tightening on the trigger. Daniel dropped to the ground and fired again, but nothing happened.

He had little room to maneuver. Thurman advanced on him, and Daniel flinched as he pulled the trigger.

A bullet pounded into the concrete next to his head.

For the first time, Daniel realized that Thurman – or whoever he really was – didn't intend to kill him. Yet, anyway. It needed energy, and absorbed the electrical impulse of the zat blast.

For the first time, Daniel heard other voices, calling to him, shouting at Thurman. "I'm okay," he reassured his teammates without taking his eyes off the – the thing in front of him.

Thurman pulled the trigger, and another bullet lodged itself in the cement, too close to his body for comfort.

Three zats hit Thurman, who closed his eyes and drew himself taller. "Don't!" Daniel shouted, pulling away and scrambling backward, to where Jack, Sam and Teal'c had taken cover at the end of the aisle. He froze as Thurman leveled the pistol on him once more. _Third time's the charm_, he thought giddily, waiting for the report of the gun.

The thing opened its mouth, and spoke. "_You will take me to the Chappa'ai._"

Jack snorted. "Not in this lifetime."

It cocked its head. "_You will take me to the Chappa'ai, or I will kill this one._"

It was using Thurman's knowledge of Daniel's usefulness to the SCG and his team to bend them to its will. It was clearly not expecting any resistance from him, and with dread Daniel heard the pause behind him lengthen. They were going to do it. They were going to let – whatever this was – possess Thurman and escape; hell, they were going to give in to a hostile alien life-form!

Pissed, Daniel hurled his zat with all his force at Thurman, then hauled himself up and ran for it. A double clatter behind him told him he had hit his mark – Thurman's gun had been knocked out of his hand. He heard his name and ducked on instinct, a zat blast furrowing into a crate on the level of his head.

Stupid, stupid! He'd armed Thurman with a zat, which unlike a gun, wouldn't run out of bullets anytime soon.

He swore between his teeth.

"Daniel?" Sam. "Are you okay?" He dropped down beside her, taking advantage of the crates to use as cover.

"Fine," he answered tightly, and it was true. Aside from a few new bruises, he was unhurt.

Jack handed him a Beretta, and Daniel's mouth flattened. There were no second chances with guns. Zats weren't any use – he refused to think about what it meant if they couldn't get the situation under control.

Thurman was standing in the center of the aisle, staring at them.

Focusing his attention on Thurman, he glanced at the others and found identical looks of concentration on their faces. It was still between them and the door.

"_You will give me my brothers, and take me to the Chappa'ai!_" the creature shouted once again.

"Gee, let me think about this." Jack's voice was dripping sarcasm. "No."

"Brothers?" Sam murmured.

"The jars." Daniel released the safety on the gun.

"_You know where my brothers are!_"

The two scientists winced – the thing had heard them, amplifying – or perhaps not even using – Thurman's senses.

Jack caught all their eyes and made a swift signal. On his mark, the team split into pairs, and raced down alternate aisles towards the door.

Thurman beat them all to it, but at least now they were closer. They were between him and the door; not, in Daniel's mind, a place they particularly wanted to be, but somewhere they _had_ to be. There was irony in that, if he wanted to think about it. Which he didn't. "Sir?" Carter yelled.

Before they could do anything, there was a release of compressed air and the _thunk_ of a small impact. Moments later, Thurman slumped to the ground. SG-2, headed by Feretti, moved cautiously into the storeroom.


	5. Chapter 4

Daniel wrapped his hands around his mug, warming cold fingers.

Thurman was restrained, in isolation, as were all the members of SG-8.

"Their brain scans are growing increasingly erratic," Janet reported. Daniel turned his attention back to the briefing. All the infected members had been examined, and the results were disturbing.

"I was observing their blood cells when I noticed something unusual," Janet's grim face was testament to the seriousness of the situation. "On follow-up tests, it was revealed that the DNA replication which usually occurs during the reproduction of cells was no longer taking place."

"Doctor?" Hammond was startled.

"Their bodies are producing new cells which are, in effect, not their own. Inexplicably, somehow these new cells are identical for all members of SG-8, and are replicating at an alarming rate."

"Janet, do you have any idea how it might be possible to rid SG-8 of these cells?"

"This shouldn't be possible!" The doctor's voice was uncharacteristically strident. She heaved a sigh and continued more calmly. "Cells are immensely complicated, and despite the advances we've been making in research, very little is known about how cells perform many of their functions. From what is known, it is _impossible _for cells to replicate without the proper genetic data." The lines around her eyes were the only signals belying Janet's external serenity.

"But the result is some sentient creature," Daniel gently pointed out. "It seems as if they're possessed, rather than infected."

Dr. Frasier sighed. "As of now we're working on trying to halt the cell replication process, but we are so far out of our depth here that we're swimming," she admitted to Hammond.

"Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel opened the folder and slid a picture to each person at the table. "I worked a bit on the small amphora SG-8 brought back," he said.

"Daniel, was that such a good idea?" Sam was nervous for her teammate.

The archaeologist shrugged, dismissing the question. "There were more markings than the one name. Across the sides was a highly stylized death's head, a symbol common among many cultures. In addition to the seal's inscription of 'Ulu Toyo'n'," he added absently.

"Yakut god. Evil, nasty Goa'uld. Check," Jack muttered.

Carter gave Jack a startled glance, and Daniel rolled his eyes. "Ulu Toyo'n. Creator god of the Yakut people, who bequeathed them with the secret of fire and one of their three souls. He's also held to be the demonic king of the Abaasy, living in the third heaven."

The picture he had given them showed the impassive visage of a dark-haired, olive skinned man. Crimson tattoos dripped like tears of flame from his blood-red eyes. His features were drawn into an imposing scowl, made fiercer for the bronze helmet atop his head, which was ornamented with a large ruby plume and a shining crescent axe-blade above each ear.

Daniel ignored Jack as he glowered right back at the image of Ulu Toyo'n, and looked to Sam as she raised her voice in a question. "What are the Abaasy?"

"In Yakut legend, the Abaasy are inhabitants of the underworld. They have iron teeth, and travel in packs of seven. They are held to be greedy, with an unmatched lust for power. They seek to expand their lands and power without regard to anything – or anyone – else."

"Gee, where have I heard _that_ before?" Jack drawled.

Daniel raised a brow, and Jack grinned.

"Indeed, these creatures sound much like the Goa'uld."

"You said it, T."

"They travel in packs of seven?" Hammond asked cautiously.

"SG-8 brought back three amphorae from the planet." Daniel pushed up his glasses, his bearing grim. "Assuming all members of the team are possessed, that makes seven."

"Do you have any idea how we get the damn things out of SG-8?" Jack asked carefully.

Daniel's lips thinned. "Not at present. The Yakut people have an oral tradition, and in contrast to the technology of most of the world, for the greater part they follow the ways of their ancestors. Vast areas of Siberia are untouched by modern civilization, and comparatively little is known about their beliefs."

"It's okay, Daniel," he murmured softly. It was obvious to him that the linguist was beating himself up over being unable to help. Daniel cocked his head to the side, and his level stare told Jack that no, it wasn't okay, but they would argue about it later.

Things were definitely closer to normal than they'd been in a very long time.

"Is there any indication of what was actually in the jars?" Sam asked, placing the picture to one side.

Daniel removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, fiddling with the frames with his opposite hand. "Not from outside observation, no." The archaeologist hesitated. "At first, I suspected that they were containers for a virus or sentient life form not unlike the orb Jack encountered a few years ago."

The colonel grimaced at the reminder of the time he had spent nailed to the 'Gateroom wall by a spike through his shoulder. "Not fun," he muttered under his breath.

The look the general shot him was both sympathetic and quelling. Jack silently wished he had that skill – his patented glare was only effective on Carter's military half, and had a tough time keeping Dr. Carter in check. With Daniel, it was pretty much worthless. Speaking of which.

"Now, I'm not sure." Daniel had paid no attention to the exchange. His blue eyes reflected a tiredness Jack was sure no one was supposed to see.

"In that case, I recommend we return to the planet for further recon," Jack advised, directing his attention to Hammond.

Daniel was openly frowning, and the General turned his attention to the archaeologist.

"What's your opinion on this, Dr. Jackson?" he asked, taking another look at the portrait of Ulu Toyo'n.

"I would advise against it," Daniel said thoughtfully.

"Why?" Jack asked, struggling to keep his voice even. Daniel was holding back, and now – it had Jack worried, on edge, and little bit angry, to be honest. He knew Thurman, knew the team, and SG-8 had been there for SG-1 many times when they'd needed it.

"Think about it," Daniel's voice was quiet, his passion so tempered it was almost gone. He expected to loose this fight. "Don Ransburg is on SG-8, and he's an experienced anthropologist. He knows better than to break a seal on any closed container without extensive pre-analysis. He would do his best to keep SG-8 from doing so. Which means that either there was an accident, or the Abaasy are roaming free on P2Z-729."

The room was quiet, absorbing the implications. General Hammond looked from one side of the table to the other, before carefully announcing his decision. "We'll send through a MALP to determine the state of the planet. Then, we'll make any decision necessary. If we go in, it'll be in full HAZMAT. I don't want to risk any more of my people being possessed."

Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but shut it before any sound could pass his lips.

"Daniel?"

The linguist looked up from the picture of Ulu Toyo'n to find Jack staring at him, and blinked. The others had left the room.

"They're sending the MALP through ASAP," the colonel continued, his face gentling at the raw defeat he saw on Daniel's. He didn't understand what had prompted this sudden emotion in the younger man, and wasn't quite sure what to do about it.

Daniel nodded. "I'm coming."

Jack carefully ushered the linguist into the control room, and they watched in wary silence as the technician dialed up P2Z-729.

The telemetry relayed by the MALP only minutes later confirmed Daniel's suspicions. The MALP's camera picked up the body of an elderly man, whose light, tan-colored robe was soiled and ripped. He was clearly dead; his half-lidded blue eyes clouded and dried tracks of blood trailing from his eyes, nostrils, and open mouth. The few teeth they could see had been filed to points, and his body looked as if it had been carelessly dropped just below the Stargate.

Daniel looked away.

"The tentative mission is scrubbed," Hammond said grimly.

"Sir!" The voice of the SF caught them all by surprise. A young man ran into the control room, urgency written in every line of his body. "Dr. Frasier requires you at the infirmary, immediately!"

Without any questions, Hammond strode to the door, Jack on his heels. Curious, Daniel followed at a clipped pace. The halls cleared quickly, and within moments they were at the infirmary.

"Sir, I don't know how to explain it," Frasier said. Daniel stared – it wasn't often that Janet was completely without explanation or idea about the cause of her patients' condition. Jack and Hammond stood next to her, and Daniel moved to the glass overlooking the isolation room. "Moments ago, Thurman suddenly went into a convulsion – it lasted for two minutes before subsiding. But when it did, his EEG returned to normal. The same happened for the rest of SG-8."

Daniel peered into the room where Thurman was being held, tightly restrained to the bed. "Janet?"

The odd tone of his voice – part horror and part shock – caught at Jack's gut and he turned, adrenaline pumping. The low conversation between Hammond and Frasier broke off abruptly.

"What is _that_?"

An opaquely white, milky substance was rising from all the orifices on Thurman's body. It resembled an impenetrable mist, and it collected in an increasingly large cloud, hovering above Thurman's body.

As the last of it rose into the air, it took on a vaguely humanoid shape. A bright splash of color directed attention downward. Thurman's nose began to bleed profusely, and Daniel could see blood tracking, much like tears, down his cheeks. Janet moved quickly to the door, but Daniel grabbed her arm and said, "No!"

He had it worked out within moments. "Don't open that door, no matter what," he snapped. He picked up the nearest phone and dialed the control room. "Sam," he rapped out. The connection was transferred almost immediately. Jack was left listening to half a conversation as he stared in disgusted fascination at the white mist being that was floating around the room.

"Is the gate still open?"

The colonel reared back as it suddenly zoomed toward the thick glass, only to pull up short and shoot across the room. Just as Thurman would clearly die within minutes, the entity was clearly trapped.

"Keep it that way. Clear out the 'Gateroom. The Abaasy are loose."

A short silence.

"Back to their planet. But we need a - ."

Daniel and Carter were obviously doing their mile-a-minute brainy ping-pong routine, bouncing off the others' intelligence to put the picture together and only explain it when the situation was taken care of.

"You'll know. Just make sure all four go through."

An emphatic pause.

"It'll be taken care of."

"Daniel?"

The linguist turned to Jack, hanging up the phone. "We have to clear all the corridors from here to the 'Gateroom, and make sure the same is done for the infirmary. These things need a path back to the 'Gate. They'll possess anyone who gets in their way."

"Gotcha," Jack snapped. He turned to the General for confirmation, and within seconds of receiving it he had returned to the phone, and was barking orders over the PA system, locking down interior sections of the base, keeping an eye on Janet, who was chafing at being kept away from a patient who obviously was in dire need of her help.

"Just hold your horses, Doc," he instructed. "Wait until that thing is gone, and then you can do whatever the hell you like." His admiration of the pint-sized power monger's dedication shone through the gruff command. Janet would brave the fires of battle, and the unknown, to help anyone who needed it.

"Sir, it's my recommendation that we get the hell away," Jack instructed. He looked around, and was gripped with an all-consuming fear. "Damnit, Daniel!"

Jack took a quick breath and heard Hammond say clearly, "Back to the control room, Colonel."

The three raced to the control room, and were nearly there when the klaxons erupted. All SGC personnel were locking themselves behind blast doors in protected sections of the facility, hoping that this latest gamble would pay off.

"Damnit, where's Daniel?" Jack roared as he burst into the control room to find only Sam and Teal'c. They were staring through the glass at three entities, which were swooping around the gate like destroyers sent from heaven.

"Daniel Jackson was with you," Teal'c informed him.

"Well, not anymore," Jack snarled heatedly. "Where the hell is he?"

"Oh, no."

Carter's shocked whisper had Jack turning to the 'Gateroom. Hammond and Janet were transfixed at the glass, and they watched in shock as Daniel entered the 'Gateroom, holding three small earthenware jars.

As soon as he entered the room, he was followed by a fourth white mist, and the other three began swooping down on him, veering away at the last minute. He didn't duck, or even acknowledge the actions of the misty beings, but rather walked right up to the 'Gate, put the jars down, and carefully raised one.

Jack could see his mouth moving, but couldn't hear what he was saying. His heart pounded, and his mouth was dry.

Daniel shouted something, and threw the jar forcefully into the wormhole. Two of the beings followed it, and Jack winced, covering his ears at the high-pitched sound, nearly out of human range, that shrieked through the air. Daniel clapped his hands to his ears, staggering closer to the wormhole, and Sam gasped in horror.

Daniel shouted something else, and hefted the second jar, tossing it through the event horizon, closely followed by the third being. One jar, and one entity, were left.

The last entity – Jack was privately convinced it was the same one which had inhabited Thurman – dove at Daniel, who barely shifted out of the way in time. With a last shout, Daniel hurled the final amphora into the wormhole.

The creature shrieked once again, and dove through the event horizon. Immediately, Sam slammed closed the iris and disconnected from the planet.

Jack got a glimpse of the control room as he turned and ran for the 'Gateroom. Janet was already gone – back to the infirmary to care for SG-8. Hammond remained at the glass as Jack, Sam and Teal'c rushed to the missing member of their team.

Daniel trudged down the ramp to sit on the steps, rubbing at his ears. A line of pain creased his face, only to be wiped quickly away on seeing Jack descending upon him with the fury of the justifiably irritated.

"Daniel? Daniel!"

"Yes?" he asked. Irritation and confusion wrapped that one word in layers of meaning. Jack could sense them, even if he couldn't understand all the nuances and undertones. Something was bothering Daniel.

"Daniel!"

"Daniel Jackson!"

Sam. Teal'c.

But right now, he couldn't understand their concern. Not too long ago he'd been sitting in this 'Gateroom, in more pain than he was now, and been completely overlooked. So why, _why_ was it – was _he_ – suddenly important again?

"I'm fine," he said roughly, standing up and moving to the door. He was forced to stop when the way was blocked, his intrinsic courtesy not allowing him to simply push past.

He had several answers to his question, each one as unpalatable as the last. He didn't fool himself for one moment into believing that it was because they wanted him here. But even more, he didn't want to believe it was because they _did_ want him that they cared.

He was still trying to make sense of the entire mess, how they had allowed their friendship to fall so far, why they had let it degrade to the point where cobwebs of emotion and memories were all that were left. The poet said it best, indeed – 'You always hurt the ones you love'.

Shaking off his morbid thoughts, Daniel said with quiet dignity, "Let me pass."

"Not until after you visit the infirmary," Sam said firmly.

Jack was behind Carter's rampant big-sister protectiveness one-hundred and fifty percent. Daniel was avoiding their eyes.

"Daniel -" Jack started. On seeing the linguist's face close up, he finished lamely, "We – we have to talk."

Daniel just shrugged, and slithered between Jack and Teal'c, moving toward the elevator. "Fine," he called.

Relieved that the linguist was indeed not as taciturn as he appeared, Jack followed closely on Daniel's heels, only to become the relieved recipient of an aggravated, scathing lecture on the less-endearing qualities of Jack's present profession – that of the mother-hen. One that was, for all intents and purposes in the eyes of a grumpy linguist, from hell.

Swallowing it all with a hidden smile and several well-placed - if somewhat irrelevant - retorts, Jack, along with Sam and Teal'c, escorted the disgruntled archaeologist to the infirmary.

-----------

If this damn thing would let me, I'd cite the 2 sources I used for the abaasy and Ulu Toyo'n in their entirety, but we're stuck with the abaasy links on freeweb(dot)com and pantheon(dot)org. Credit goes there, not here.

Yes, the Yakut are a real people. All the info given on them (and about the Abaasy and Ulu Toyo'n) is fact – as much as legend permits; no artistic license has been used (yet, and I make no promises) in any way.

To the few who thought the last cliffie was devilish, yet, I accept all responsibility with only this to say – God, it's _fun_ to be evil!! So, beware! (mischievous grin)


	6. Chapter 5

"Where the hell is he?" Jack hollered, noting with perverse satisfaction that Frasier jumped in shock.

Daniel had given them the slip. On the way to the infirmary, Sam, naturally, and volunteered to forewarn Janet of his approach – and to reassure her that immediate resuscitation would not be required. That left Teal'c and Jack dogging the linguist's heels much like persistent, overzealous terriers.

Once they had arrived, he had asked Jack to pick up a specific book from his office for him – one that was apparently in several languages, none of which happened to be English. Jack had commandeered Teal'c as backup, and spent a disgusting amount of time searching for a tome that had apparently been lying in plain sight on top of a stack to the left of Daniel's desk.

In the meantime and unaware of their errand, Hammond had wanted Sam to figure out why the klaxons had gone off and the iris engaged – although it had not opened – at the inception of the foothold situation.

So, quite by accident, Daniel had been left alone in the infirmary. And the anthropologist had taken advantage by speeding the inspection and booking so fast the door hadn't had a chance to hit him on the way out. This was _not_ good.

He hadn't stopped by his office, either, or Jack would've run into him.

"Well?" Jack demanded. At his side, Teal'c glowered.

Janet frowned. "He had low levels of dopamine and serotonin, which combined to make him irritable and depressed. It was an offshoot of being exposed to those - entities, for any period of time. Several of my nurses are also showing effects. Added to that he's a little banged up, and exhausted. I told him to get rest, and he promised he would. I thought he was going to get you."

Jack snorted in disbelief. "Since when has Daniel ever made it that easy for us? Why didn't you just keep him here?"

Janet's face was frozen. "He still doesn't trust me, Colonel. What would you have me do? Further his discomfort by forcing him to remain here?"

Put like that, Jack didn't have much to say. He snarled a bit under his breath, and turned on his heel. One quick call affirmed his suspicions – Daniel had signed out, and requested that an airman drive him. Where, Jack couldn't find out. Daniel's car had been indefinitely leant out to his former neighbors, a newlywed couple in dire straights. He wouldn't be repossessing it for some time, given his innate generosity. He also had nowhere to stay outside the Mountain, but there were several motels within a half-hour's drive, which barely narrowed Jack's search parameters.

"C'mon, T," Jack said, leaving the infirmary. The other fell into step next to him.

"What is your plan, O'Neill?"

Jack threw a sideways glance at the stoic Jaffa. Teal'c looked seriously displeased. Jack winced. "We're gonna grab Carter and track down our archaeologist," he informed the warrior.

Teal'c nodded in agreement, and Jack called out as they reached Carter's lab, "Carter!"

Entering the lab, they saw that Sam's back was to them, and she was absorbed in a phone conversation. Jack impatiently waited for her to finish, but was taken aback by the anger in her face when she dropped the phone into its cradle and turned to them.

"Carter?"

She glared at them, then realized who was in her office and adjusted her expression appropriately. Jack winced as her furious stare focused in on a cabinet next to him. "Sir."

"Carter." His voice was crisp, full of authority, demanding a report.

"Sir. I've discovered the reason behind the unexpected alarm this morning." She plowed right on through any comment Jack might have made. "It was a distraction, in order to allow the NID operative held in a containment cell in the lower levels to escape. There is no question that he received inside help from at least one, and probably more, people."

Jack's face froze. "So Daniel's information was right," he muttered, more for the benefit of anyone who had doubted than for himself.

Sam bit her lip. "Sir - "

"Spit it out, Carter."

"The saboteur has an intimate knowledge of the 'Gate's dialing system, as well as the security software governing the entire base."

Jack's quiet curse made Carter purse her lips in agreement. "Is there anything we can do about it now?"

Frustrated, Sam shook her head. "We'll need to start critically examining all personnel with even the slightest technical capability. It's going to be a monumental task, and quite honestly we have a very low chance of success. Our actions can't be interpreted as other than what they are, and we're probably going to tip the culprit off as soon as we start asking questions. Also, records and files are so easily falsified that -"

Jack, having intimate knowledge of this type of situation, cut her off. "Have you informed Hammond?"

"He's up-to-date on the circumstances, sir."

"Good. Let's go."

"Sir?" Sam was surprised.

"Daniel's cut and run again, and I don't think that he really needs to be left alone after what happened today. Do you?"

Sam only shook her head. Daniel was still hurting, still healing, and this had to be a wrench. He'd only been back for a few days before a foothold situation had thrown the base into confusion; compounded with that, he'd been used as leverage against his friends. It was the norm for the SGC, but Sam wished that it had held off, just long enough for Daniel to get his feet under him again.

The three friends had appraised Hammond of the situation, changed and signed out within moments. Over the next three hours, they scoured the motels in and around the Colorado Springs area, coming up blank. No one with Daniel's description had reserved a room in any of the establishments. They checked their own houses and answering machines, but couldn't find any trace of the missing linguist. Worry escalated slowly into full-blown panic.

At the end of her rope, Sam suggested finding the airman who had driven Daniel, and they returned to the base. Yet the airman who reportedly had taken Daniel, a 'Rachel Mayers', had not returned to base either.

Teal'c said what they had not wanted to admit. "Daniel Jackson is missing."

Sam's fists clenched at her sides. Jack looked like he wanted to beat something to a pulp.

"Carter," he barked. "Find out everything you can about Rachel Mayers." Hard eyes told her what words could not, and dread coiled deep in her stomach.

Several moments of typing later revealed the picture of a woman of approximately thirty-seven years of age, with cropped brown hair and brown eyes. Her face was squared and oddly angular, much more masculine in appearance than feminine. She had light technical background, and was only brought into Cheyanne four months ago.

Jack frowned at the picture. Her file was ordinary enough; no outstanding – either good or bad – accomplishments or comments on her personality. No black marks that would draw the attention of her superiors. All in all, she was disturbingly ordinary, one of the people who simply faded into the background at the SGC.

Sam frowned, and did a standard background check. Nothing came up, not that she expected anything to. But something didn't sit well with her, and she decided to check more extensively into Private Mayers' profile.

Half an hour later yielded definite results. A near invisible trail of association with NID incidents and known collaborators led Rachel Mayers straight from Area 51 to Cheyanne.

And with this realization, Sam's heart plummeted. Gathering all her evidence as quickly as she could, she raced to the briefing room.

She threw open the door, interrupting what appeared to be an escalating disagreement between O'Neill and Hammond. "Sir!" she interrupted, ignoring protocol.

"Major," Jack said coolly, eyes still on Hammond. "What is it?"

"Sir, it's the NID," she said, throat dry. "They've got Daniel."

The three men in the room stared at her, their faces reflecting a medley of emotions – shock, horror, and finally, murderous anger.

"You are certain, Major Carter?" Teal'c's voice was dangerously low, his stoic attitude ruined by the fists clenching on the tabletop.

Sam nodded, and was able to detail the situation in a few words, explaining the connections she had traced which had led her directly back to Area 51.

Jack's face was a frozen mask, and Sam winced, glancing away from the glacial fury in his eyes.

Finally, she brought herself to ask the one question she didn't have the power to answer – but hopefully, one of the men before her would be able to. "Now what?"

- - - - - - - - - - --

Ok, it's a tiny bit shorter than usual, and yes, evil cliffie of me. :) Anyway, I'll probably be hit by inspiration to continue after my most evil exam on Tues, so look for another posting towards the end of the week. :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


	7. Chapter 6

Daniel ignored the man sitting behind him, just as he ignored the gun in the man's hand. Jiro had always emphasized to the women in the dojo that their chances of survival against an assailant with a gun were around forty percent; however, those chances dropped to less than two percent if they were forced into a car.

Now, all he could do was wait.

He'd requested that an airman drive him home. The woman behind the wheel had been taciturn, and Daniel hadn't felt like talking, but he'd realized that something was wrong when the car had pulled up to the curb, and a man had run from the scrub on the edge of the road toward the vehicle.

Daniel had recognized the NID agent almost as soon as he got a good look at him, but by then it was far too late. There was a gun on him, and the man had quickly clambered into the backseat. In such a confined space he had little to no chance against the weapon.

He had no idea where they were going; all he could do was memorize the directions and the roads to their destination. Aside from the determination that they were traveling roughly west, he had no idea where he was. The roads were becoming increasingly deserted, and as fewer cars passed them by, Daniel grew more and more nervous.

He didn't really know what the NID wanted him for, but it was common sense that when someone forced you to remain in a vehicle, they were taking you somewhere secluded. Somewhere that they wouldn't be disturbed by trivialities like the law, and its enforcers. Somewhere you never wanted to be, especially when outnumbered with the weapons all on their side. He didn't even have much of the element of surprise; the NID man knew at least some of what he was capable of. Daniel tried to keep his mind calm as he discreetly stretched his legs and hands, preparing to run at the first opportunity.

He never got the chance.

After turning down a road that was more of a path than a throughway, Daniel caught a glimpse of their destination through the thick forest. The car pulled up around the outside of an abandoned hydro-electric power generating facility, circa 1970, and was surrounded by armed soldiers before it had finished braking. The clearing they stopped in was ten yards from the building, situated on the bank of a river where the remnants of a dam could be seen. There were trees all around, creating thick walls of greenery that shielded them from the main road, forty yards distant down the winding, rocky trail.

The woman in the driver's seat reached around to her opposite side and pulled out a hypodermic needle. Daniel, having long-since unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the door and quickly got out, holding his hands up and praying that they wouldn't shoot him as soon as he left the car. Years of leaf buildup crackled under his shoes.

The NID operative jumped out from the back and held the pistol on him. "Weapons," he snapped, looking Daniel over.

The linguist stopped just short of rolling his eyes. "I don't have any."

"Check him," the operative ordered.

The woman, who had gotten out during their exchange, rounded the side of the car. For a moment Daniel contemplated grabbing her, but he didn't have anything other than his hands as a weapon with which to threaten her. Also, he was surrounded. While he could use her as a human shield, one of the soldiers might just shoot him in the back. In addition to that was his knowledge that to the NID, anyone was expendable – having a hostage would likely do him no good.

He endured the efficient frisking, his face impassive as he heard the woman's voice for the first time.

"He's clean."

That cemented it – he'd never met this woman before. He tried to get to know as many people at the SGC as he could by name and voice, but he had no idea who she was.

Daniel could feel frustration and fear welling up. He wanted, more than anything, to try to free himself somehow. It went against everything he was to just stand quietly and play the passive victim. But to try anything with no less than fifteen sub-machine guns and a pistol aimed unerringly at his body was sheer lunacy; and despite the claims of his academic peers, Daniel was in full possession of his faculties.

The NID operative glanced toward the sky, and without meaning to, Daniel did the same. The weather was clear, only a few clouds dotting the bright blue. The operative swore, and Daniel frowned a little.

"Do it." His tone was impatient, and Daniel looked quickly around to see the woman had pulled the cap off the syringe. Her brown eyes were flat, and cold. Dead to emotion. He took a swift step back, palms out in a placating gesture even as his feet found a solid defense position.

The soldiers cocked their weapons, and the sounds of over a dozen safeties being removed echoed loudly in the clearing. Everyone froze. The only noise was the wind whispering through the leaves.

"Dr. Jackson," the operative addressed him for the first time. Daniel's brows lowered at the smug satisfaction in his tone. "I believe you can see that escape is not an option. It would behoove you to cooperate, and allow Rachel inject you. It is a sedative, nothing more. Should you refuse, we will have no option but to incapacitate you in a more – permanent manner."

Daniel's furious gaze made the operative smile, slightly. But recognizing the true threat behind the words, and knowing that a bullet to the knee or elbow would cripple him for life, Daniel could only tense as the woman – Rachel – approached. They wouldn't kill him; they wanted him alive.

He lowered his hands, clenching fists at his side. The needle slid smoothly into the skin on the side of his neck, and he winced a little at the sharp sting.

Within moments, his eyes wavered out of focus and he couldn't feel his legs. He blinked, and the next thought that entered his consciousness was that he was being lowered to the ground. He didn't even have time to register the vague surprise that thought generated before blackness swallowed him whole.

It seemed like only moments later that he was opening his eyes. But in that time, everything had changed. His entire body was a distant numbness, refusing to respond to him. He opened his eyes, and the fuzziness in his brain started to clear away. He tried to move again, and found that though he could, the motions were curtailed by something. Looking down, he saw that he was lying on a gurney, restrained by familiar straps encircling arms, legs, and torso. He strained with all his might, and his body jerked against the straps.

A blurred face moved into his line of sight, and Daniel slammed back into the thin mattress, surprised. With the movement, all his muscles relaxed and his vision grayed out before slowly fading back in.

There was a roaring noise in his ears, and light all around. He felt a sharp prick again, and this time he struggled, fighting against the restraints until the drug stole all control from him and darkness claimed him once more.

The next time he woke, it was a slow process. Before he opened his eyes, he registered the sounds of people moving around him, not troubling to mute their voices or actions in any way. The smell was the second thing he noticed – the air was dusty, yet had the antiseptic stench of a hospital or lab. Cold, unwelcoming.

The light was harsh, and he squinted, raising his forearm to protect his eyes. He was free – but so groggy that forcing himself to process was an ordeal. Shaking his head, Daniel braced himself and tried to sit.

Mere seconds later, he dropped back to the mattress, eyes squeezed shut and hands clamped to his stomach. Breathing harshly through his mouth, he tried to open his eyes again.

"Dr. Jackson? Dr. Jackson?"

Someone was calling his name, sounding concerned. Daniel's brow furrowed. This time his eyes stayed open, and he felt cool frames in his hand. Wondering at the sense in trying to focus a world that was tilting crazily, he nevertheless slipped the glasses on.

In front of him was a youngish man with curly chocolate-colored hair twitching nervously at a lab coat that was drooping of his shoulders. Daniel rubbed at his temples and said brusquely, "Who are you? Where am I?"

The room had simply the two of them and a cot. There was one window – about six inches by twelve, set in the steel door. Daniel could see the shadow of someone standing guard outside it.

"Ah – I – I'm Joe Campbell," he stammered. "And you're at the NID base of operations outside Ain Ghazal."

Daniel blinked, incredulous. "I'm in _Jordan_?" he demanded.

Campbell twittered nervously for a moment. Daniel stared and he eventually managed, "Ah, well, yes."

The door opened at that point, and the NID agent Daniel had apprehended walked in and smoothly inserted himself into the conversation. "Dr. Jackson. I'm pleased to see that you're finally awake."

"And you are?" Daniel asked, wanting to put a name to a face.

The man's resulting expression was more a grimace than a smile, but he replied nevertheless. "I am Lt. Sanders."

"I assume you're going to let me know why I'm here," Daniel snapped after a moment of silent consideration.

Again, the man's face contorted. "Yes," he returned tersely.

Campbell was looking on with undisguised curiosity. Sanders turned to him and said, in a surprisingly gentle voice, "Joe, would you wait outside for a moment?"

The man nodded and walked out the door, carefully closing it behind him.

Daniel stared at the NID operative for a moment.

"You're here because the NID requires your expertise on a matter of much – delicacy." Sanders was choosing his words carefully.

"What makes you think I'm inclined to willfully cooperate with the NID?" Daniel inquired, almost gently.

"You don't have a choice." Daniel shot him a hard look, but Sanders' expression didn't change. "We need your expertise, and you will give it, or I imagine you won't like the consequences."

"Excuse me?" Daniel asked coldly. He could play this game too – and a slight uneasiness passed over Sanders' face as he was reminded that not too long ago, Daniel had held a gun on him with the same threats he was issuing now.

Daniel was inwardly compressing all his emotion. To show _anything_ of his fear, anger, and confusion would be to let them win, to become a victim. He had never been a victim, never allowing himself to loose sight of his integrity in his life, and he was damned if he started now.

Not allowing him to think of the literal connotations of that determined thought, Daniel kept his focus on Sanders, who had quickly assumed an expression of confidence, secure in the knowledge that Daniel was helpless – unknowing of where he was and with whom, and even of _when_ he was. Leaving the SGC in a dissipating cloud of anxiety seemed simultaneously mere moments and ages ago. The drug still coursing through his system had lingering effects that only served to confuse the archaeologist and add to his disorientation.

"You are, as Joe has no doubt told you, in Ain Ghazel, in Jordan," Sanders informed him. "The organization for which we work has – requested your talents in deciphering several texts which have been unearthed."

Daniel raised a brow, and Sanders continued unhurriedly. "We have a need for your particular skills." The man moved to the door and knocked on it twice as he spoke. He moved toward Daniel once more, and the archaeologist readied himself for a fight. "You _will_ help us."

Daniel didn't even bother to refute this statement as Sanders came in reach. Quickly he struck out, moving forward and pulling his hand into his chest and twisting his torso slightly to strike Sanders in the face with the flat of his elbow. He felt the man's nose break under the sharp impact, and the Lieutenant dropped, cupping his bleeding face. Daniel looked up to see two swarthy men, decked in cammo, enter the room, guns on him. They, however, were not foolish enough to get close, and Daniel's options were limited. He took several quick steps toward the door but was halted as a bullet buried itself in the linoleum floor inches in front of his feet. "The next one means a knee," one man, who was positioned to Daniel's right, warned.

Daniel froze, and Sanders painfully hauled himself to his feet, moving in front of Daniel. Blood streamed down his face, which was twisted in fury. He moved to strike the linguist, and Daniel raised his arms, shielding himself from the blow.

Sanders spat blood at his feet, and snarled, "This is a little taste of what your life will be like for the next few weeks, Doctor, if you insist on being . . . _difficult_."

Sanders stepped backwards, out of arm's reach, before turning to the door, giving a sharp nod to the man who had fired his gun. The lieutenant exited, and the man who had fired the shot backed up to the door, keeping the weapon sighted on Daniel as his compatriot moved in, holstering the weapon on the side farthest from the linguist, and thus out of his reach. He removed a hypodermic from a large pocket, and Daniel felt a thrill of horror. He had no desire to be drugged senseless again.

The man at the door was very good. "Don't think it," he warned, catching the almost-imperceptible tensing in Daniel's body as he moved through the terrifying limbo of being caught between fight and flight. Simultaneously, the guard shifted farther to Daniel's right, keeping a clear line of sight at all times. These people were extraordinarily good, and taking no chances.

The man closest to him – yet still out of range – pointed to the gurney. Daniel moved slowly back to it, watching as the soldier maintained precise distance. These men were professionals.

He hit the gurney, but refused the instructions that would have had him buckling himself into the restraints. Thus, he could only lie passively as he was tightly restrained, and the contents of this hypodermic were injected into the major vein in his arm.

The guards then left, locking the door and turning off the light, leaving Daniel alone in the silence of the dimly illuminated cell. And as he waited for the darkness, Daniel cursed his own inability to take action.

- - - - - - - - - -

Arg. Delays – yes, I know. Exams (voracious and terrifying) attacked. And the general decline in reviews had me relatively unmotivated. Sorry. I think I've been spoiled awfully by the massive response generated by the first few chaps, which tapered off significantly during the last 2. But, in light of that, please review!!


	8. Chapter 7

Jack's lips were a tight line, slashing across his face. Carter's face was emotive of exhaustion, and even Teal'c looked somewhat worse for the wear. Daniel had been missing for fifty-three hours, long enough for him to be taken to God only knew where.

The lead on Rachel Mayers had been completely fruitless. It was almost as if she had never truly existed, clichéd as that may have sounded. Their records on her – as well as additional information that Sam had been able to hack her way into – indicated nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing, aside from the near-invisible paper trail of promotions and transfers which indicated that the NID had been subtly maneuvering her into position for little over two years.

The result was that the apartment she was listed as occupying was, according to the neighbors, the home of an older graduate student who was studying abroad for several months. The Colonel's clandestine use of a few Special Ops skills had revealed a completely uninhabited set of rooms, devoid of any signs of life or occupancy, save a vivacious colony of ants.

Her car, left in the SGC's parking allotment, was registered to one Susan Rousch and completely empty. Desperate, Sam had searched for Susan Rousch and turned up two very interesting facts. The first was that the Susan Rousch currently listed in the government's files pertaining to Social Security had the same picture as Rachel Mayers' official military file. The second was an obituary for Susan Rousch, former inhabitant of Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania. The slight irony was more painful than funny, at this point.

And that point had been roughly fourteen hours and thirteen minutes ago, Sam noted, staring at her watch. They – none of them, including, she suspected, General Hammond – had gotten any sleep. Jack had made several wasted attempts to contact Maybourne, with no results. General Hammond had apparently pulled at every string he could reach, and quite a few he couldn't, and had turned up nothing. Teal'c had probably been the most frustrated, unable to do anything but gently probe the people in Colorado Springs in an effort to find out anything. He had known the effort was futile before he began, but each of them had a need to do something.

Daniel had been quite effectively snatched, from right under their noses. There wasn't a member of SG-1 who wasn't feeling the burden of guilt, the weight of hundreds of mental _if only_'s.

"Also, Private Dawlish, who was found dead outside the storeroom in which Major Thurman was discovered, was stationed to be guarding the NID operative during that time block. I believe that Mayers killed him while freeing the prisoner. But that doesn't explain what he why he was found in such close proximity to the heart of the situation with the Abaasy."

After delivering her report, Sam fell silent. The four of them were ensconced in the briefing room, going over their options. Which were limited, with doubtful effectiveness.

"What is your opinion on that, Major?"

Sam answered the general carefully. "I'm unsure. The only possible scenario I could work out involves Mayers killing Dawlish and then bringing him to the storeroom, or perhaps luring him there before killing him. Private Xang, who is recovering in the infirmary, doesn't recollect anything unusual occurring before he was knocked unconscious. If Mayers did kill Dawlish, she would have had to do so after Xang was incapacitated, after Thurman and the Abaasy entered the storeroom, yet before we showed up. The timing would have to be very precise, which suggests that Mayers either had foreknowledge of the Abaasy's movements and goals, or they were working together. Unfortunately, we won't know that until we find Mayers, and to do that we first have to find Daniel."

That was the crux of the problem, and though some would have put Mayers and the traitors, as well as the implications of a second infiltration into the SGC, as priority over finding a missing linguist who wasn't technically even a member of an SG team anymore, Sam refused to do so. They could deal with the NID when – not if – they got Daniel back.

"There's got to be something we can do!" Jack finally burst out, slamming his palm down on the table in overflowing frustration. Brown eyes were fiery with thwarted anger.

"On the contrary, O'Neill," Teal'c spoke up unexpectedly. "There appears to be nothing we can do at this time."

"I don't buy that, T," the Colonel snapped. "There's always something."

Something occurred to Sam. "Sir," she said slowly.

"Carter?" the Colonel's eyes were begging her to have found a solution, and she glanced away, unable to look him in the eye as she disappointed him.

"I think that our best course of action right now would be to more fully research Rachel Mayers, and her alias, for information," Sam said quietly. Jack's face fell, and she ignored the crushing disappointment in his eyes. "There are several things that just don't fit together neatly about her background, and I'm curious to see where the trail leads us. It's quite possible that, given a little time, we can find someone higher within the NID to lean on."

"Time is one thing I don't think Daniel has," Jack snapped, but he ran his hands over his face in exhaustion and then quietly apologized. "Sorry, Carter."

"Sir," she acknowledged, and he nodded.

"General?"

Hammond's face was drawn, and he nodded slightly. Jack stood, and the three remaining members of SG-1 exited the briefing room. When they got to Daniel's office, Sam sank down on the couch while Teal'c stayed just inside the door. Jack moved over to the linguist's desk, bracing his hands on the tabletop. "Ok, Carter, I want you to find out everything you can. With luck, we'll get a lead on these bastards. Teal'c, you're with me."

"O'Neill?"

Jack calmly answered the Jaffa's unspoken question. "It's not like Maybourne not to pick up the phone when I call. He likes it when I owe him one. He may be a rat bastard, but he's slightly more principled than the rest of these slimeballs."

Teal'c raised a loquacious brow, expressing his disbelief more eloquently than Sam would have been able to, under the circumstances.

The Colonel grimaced, hearing his own words. "Yea, I know. But something's not right there, and I've got to do _something_."

Teal'c agreed with a silent bob of his head. Sam stayed at her computer, fingers stilling on the keyboard as the two men headed for the door.

"Colonel?" He halted before exiting, and looked back. In that moment, desperation was mirrored in three sets of eyes. "Good luck."

He nodded, and seconds later Sam was left alone in her lab, doing her own version of digging.

As she researched, Sam found out more and more about Susan Rousch, and when dates started to match up, her suspicions seemed more solid than pure fantasy. Susan Rousch had been raised as the Protestant daughter of a loosely Protestant father and Orthodox Jewish mother. Her parents were still happily married, with three other children. Susan had been the third child of the four, and had been briefly married and divorced before her car had hydroplaned during a thunderstorm and rolled down an embankment into a river. The body had been unrecognizable, and there had been a delay, a small mix-up, when the police obtained dental records that had confirmed her death.

In light of that, Sam firmly believed that Rachel Mayers was Susan Rousch. The NID were very good, but not everything always went to plan in the real world. Right now, Sam was thanking God for Murphy's Law.

Speaking of which . . . . with a small frown, Sam cursed herself for not seeing the obvious right away. Daniel had been hijacked while in the vehicle, not forced into one. But even so, someone had to have seen the car go. Someone had to have seen _something_. And while eye-witness reports were prized, their reliability was somewhat in question.

So Sam pulled up satellite imaging of the base, scrolling through the records of pictures in the hopes of seeing something. In the six-hour time slot in which they had determined that Daniel was missing and probably kidnapped, only seven cars had left the base. They had been lucky – the recent foothold situation had required many people to work late or double shifts, resulting in a large number of SGC personnel electing to stay the night at the base rather than risk driving while exhausted.

Four of the seven were easily tracked as airmen who were regular workers on duty today, but even so, Sam called the General and he agreed to her request for a quiet, non-invasive search of each premises. Both were more than aware that it would probably turn up nothing, but it never hurt to try.

Hanging up the phone, Sam looked up as someone tapped on the door before waltzing right on in. It was the colonel, followed by Teal'c. Sam glanced at the clock and was astonished to find that they'd been gone nearly four hours.

Despite the coffee and food he was bearing, the colonel did not look pleased. Nor did Teal'c.

"Any luck?" Sam asked hopefully.

"No joy," the colonel replied succinctly. His drawl was laden with displeasure. "We found Maybourne. Unfortunately, he had no idea what we were talking about. Apparently whatever this is, goes up to the inner circles of the NID and nobody's talking."

Sam sipped at the hot coffee and closed her eyes in bliss. She didn't have the kind of relationship that Daniel did with the beverage, but she did enjoy a caffeine rush every now and then. "Find anything?"

Swallowing, Sam warned, "It may turn out to be nothing."

Jack perked up considerably. "Whadja find?"

Sam explained about Susan Rousch, and brought the colonel up-to-date on the satellite tracking that was taking place. "I'm looking into the three other vehicles that left the base. One is a van that was doing a short supply run to NORAD. The other two are a station wagon and four-door sedan, respectively."

"Such information seems promising, Major Carter," Teal'c interjected.

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Whoever we're dealing with knows a good deal about covering their tracks, and Daniel's been missing for nearly sixty hours, and everything we've turned up has been a dead end."

"Follow it," Jack ordered brusquely, and Sam nodded crisply, recognizing the order.

For the next forty-minutes, the colonel hovered over her shoulder and meandered about her lab as she painstakingly traced the routes of each vehicle. The van returned to its supply route, and Hammond agreed to send SF's to stop the van and search it, and also to check along its drop-off points for any unusual activity. The two cars, likewise, seemed to meander before returning to various points – one a motel, the other, a small home in Colorado Springs.

Sam frowned. So far, the SF's had turned up nothing, and while Hammond agreed to send them out to the remaining locations, she could hear in his voice that he thought the effort would be fruitless. By this time, they were looking for a trail, knowing that Daniel could have been moved over a dozen times in the duration of their search. Frustrated, she went through the painstaking process again, and it was a full hour before she saw it.

It was a tiny mistake, the blurring of one frame, its slight misplacement in the screen, which tipped her off. Frowning and rubbing at exhausted, strained eyes, she peered more closely at the screen. Jack jumped on the motion, coming over to prop himself on the desktop next to her. Teal'c remained within kel'no'reem, but reverted to a lighter state to comment, "Have you found something, Major Carter?"

Sam typed quickly, in-putting queries and adjusting the frame image until she was sure of what she was seeing – which was, all in all, slightly perplexing. "Yes," she finally responded. Teal'c moved to the screen, and Sam pulled up the preceding image. "Look at the quality of this picture," she said. Without giving either man a chance to respond, she pulled up the second picture. "It's hard to see, but the quality of this picture is slightly worse, and no amount of focusing or enhancing the pixels has cleared it up any."

"What does that mean?" Jack was impatient.

"The only thing I could think of that would distort these pictures like this would be if a second signal was received at the exact same moment as the first. In that case, the computer would register two signals, but only the stronger one would be recorded as a picture. In this case, I monitored the signal strength to determine the fluctuations in what should be a regular sine curve and -"

"Carter?" Jack prompted her to get to the point, already.

Sam sighed. "I think that the NID created a satellite signal recording of the normal comings and goings of the base on a regular day and then projected that up to the satellite surveillance system, overriding the images of what was really going on."

"Is there any way you can -"

Sam bit her lip. "The NID signal is only slightly stronger than the actual one – strong enough to be clear, yet weak enough to avoid most notice. I could probably parse out the intruding signal and recreate with digital imaging a general idea of what actually happened, but that will take time. In the meantime, there's an easier way that might at the least give us some general boundaries for the search, and something more to go on."

With that, Sam delved back into the computer, absently answering the Colonel's question as she did. "How? Well, I'm going to search for a frame similar to this one, later in the sequence, which would indicate signal normalization. The length of time the NID needed to conceal their activities from the satellite should give us a rough idea of how far they needed to get Daniel away before they felt it safe to stop interfering with the signal. They would want to keep that time as short as possible, because the longer they kept it up, the lower the probability that their actions would go unnoticed."

"Ah."

Sam crowed in triumph when, a mere ten minutes later, her trained eye found the frame she was looking for. Within a space of ten minutes, she had run some calculations and come up with a number. "Fifty-two minutes," she announced.

Just under an hour, which meant that traveling at top speed . . . Sam dove for a map of Colorado which she had pulled out in the vague hope that she might be able to trace the possible routes if she got an idea of direction. Seizing a nearby marker, she placed an emphatic dot on Cheyenne Mountain, and then yanked out a ruler. Carefully scaling, she drew a circle with roughly a one-hundred mile radius out from the SGC.

"That's a lot of ground," Jack mused.

"It's the maximum distance that they would have been able to cover in this time without coming to the attention of the local police," Sam replied. And she should know.

She'd checked.

"So whatever they needed to do, they did in fifty-two minutes, which probably extends from the moment Rachel Mayers -" Jack practically spat the name in disgust –"contacted her superiors that she was prepping for the snatch."

Sam looked at the map, and was crestfallen at the amount of space they needed to cover. She looked at Jack, letting her expression ask the question for her.

"Now," Jack responded, letting his eyes drift to the map, "Pick a direction. We're going scouting."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Wow, yea, I got guilt. (shrugs, embarrassed). Sorry about the call I put out into the void last chap to see if life-forms would respond. I recently received a review which accused me of falling into the pit of predictability, and while normally I would just sort of snicker and move on, I have felt of late as if I was teetering on the edge. Lack of response was sort of convincing me that perhaps people were saying, "Ah, I can see where this is going, catch you on the flipside" sorta thing. Was just in need of some reassurance (sheepish grin). Sorry 'bout that. But hey, 'twas a wonderful motivator, no?


	9. Chapter 8

It was not a sedative. He discovered this almost immediately, when the room stayed in focus and showed no signs of blacking out on him any time soon. To his great relief, there was also no rush associated with the injection, which meant that in all probability they weren't trying to get him hooked on something like cocaine or heroin. His thoughts whirled, trying hard to figure out what they could have put in that syringe.

Ideas danced through his brain, many discarded practically at their conception, if not before. He was an educated man – and though Jack would argue against it, idealism did not preclude street-smarts. Yet he could not come up with a plausible reason for them to drug him, unless to subdue him.

A small part of him sat back in amazement and watched the frenetic activity of the rest of his mind, marveling at the way he was simultaneously exploring different avenues of thought. Panic and adrenaline could do remarkable things to the brain.

He had only just processed that realization when an alarming thought hit him. This was wrong – he didn't think like this – his thoughts were loud, clamoring, inside his brain and he was desperate for something to which he could direct his attention, his focus - and there was nothing to engage his over-worked and under-stimulated mind in this bare, barren room. What had they done to him?

He was suddenly reminded of Ma'chello's mind-bugs, how they had thrown off his perceptions, and the helplessness he felt then, knowing that he couldn't trust what he was seeing, what he was hearing and feeling, and knowing that he was trapped. Daniel took several deep breaths, trying to stave off hyperventilation for as long as possible, and closed his eyes, retreating back into his own mind and trying to process what the drug was doing to him.

The small, detached part of his mind came to his rescue. He could focus on that one voice of reason within himself, and block out all the other sensations and random thoughts distracting him.

What did he know?

He was at the dubious mercy of the NID, apparently in Ain Ghazel. It was across the Dead Sea from Ein Gedi, in Jordan. He ignored the part of his mind that seized upon that scrap of knowledge and ran with it, digging through his memory to find every piece of information he could recall about the famous site.

He was most assuredly being treated with care, despite the drugs and the force being employed. He catalogued the reactions of the guards and determined that they had assumed him to be a pure academic, yet the degree of caution they had treated him with – especially after breaking Sanders' nose – suggested a level of professionalism that would only escalate if they knew he was planning and capable of escape. The fact that they had yet to seriously harm him, despite his resistance, suggested that he had value to them. Perhaps he could use that as leverage.

He had been missing for at least two days, perhaps more. If he was truly in Ain Ghazel, across the globe from the SGC, and had been unconscious for an unspecified period of time, then he had lost perhaps forty-eight, yet definitely no more than seventy-two hours.

What did he have? What did he need?

The first list extended no further than his clothing, faculties, and hidden self-defense capabilities. He limited the second to escape, unwilling to think further on the odds he could feel his mind calculating even as he studiously ignored the numbers churning in his brain.

It was too soon before the small, reasonable part of his mind was exhausted, and retreated. Daniel found himself adrift within his own mind, and he closed his eyes, concentrating within.

He had no idea how long he lay there, processing everything about him at lightning-speed, going through the coordinates for each planetary designation he could recall in each of his twenty-five plus languages. He started to play mental word games, doing everything he could to stay anchored in this sea of blurring mental motion. All too soon, though, he was left with nothing to occupy his frenetic thoughts.

Then, to try to keep himself from slipping into dementia, he started planning escape. Part of him awoke long enough to sneer at the ridiculousness of his presumption. He knew nothing about the way this place – wherever it was – really worked; nothing about guard numbers, routines, schedules, the layout of the compound – if it really was one. In addition, he needed to get out of the country while avoiding the NID, who would undoubtedly be following him from the moment he escaped. There was so much he didn't know. But so having so many variables to account for left his mind free to envision different scenarios and lay out different plans for each new situation he could come up with, not unlike the simulations that trainees were put through before being granted admittance to the SGC.

This was how he occupied himself, for the hours that it took for the drug to run its course. Unlike what he had expected, this drug sharpened his senses so that he had an exact grasp of the time. It was eight hours and thirty-nine minutes before his mind calmed enough that he lost track, he could feel the tension slowly seeping out of him. The effort he had extolled to keep himself, locked away from external stimulation, from loosing his grasp on reality had exhausted Daniel.

Even so, after so much forced unconsciousness, he couldn't sleep. Being drugged into oblivion did not constitute proper rest, yet anxiety tugged at him relentlessly as he faced the reality of his situation.

It was only a short time after the drug seemed to have run its course when Sanders returned. He had cleaned up and sought medical care, and was also much more in control of himself.

"What did you give me?" Daniel demanded.

Sanders shrugged. "It was nothing more than a slightly engineered isotope of a naturally produced brain chemical, if you must know. Glutamate, to be precise. It was altered to penetrate the limbic system and saturate your cells, regardless of the content already present. It is, as you have no doubt guessed, a stimulant. It also is quite closely involved with memory."

Daniel's head was beginning to ache.

Sanders, however, only allowed a pause for a moment. "This is what you will be injected with, every morning. Should you decide not to assist us -" he gestured to the restraints. "You will remain here. I will mention, however, that it will be infinitely easier for you if you have something to think about, to concentrate on, while the drug is in your system."

Daniel glared at Sanders, struggling to think over the pounding in his skull. They were going to drug him like that, every day, and there was nothing he could do about it. They knew that, as did he. He had a choice. He could either resist, and in all probability be raving if – _when_ – Jack, Sam and Teal'c found him, or he could work with the NID. Use every opportunity to gather information for escape. Slow them, sabotage them, if he could. Anything.

Daniel finally locked his eyes with Sanders, and slowly nodded his head.

Sanders' resulting smile was not a nice expression, laden with smug superiority, but acquiescence gained Daniel a palatable, surprisingly good meal. Aside from drugging him into a highly-stimulated frenzy every chance they got, there were no risks being taken with his well-being. The irony of that made Daniel hide a smile behind the rim of his cup, sipping at the water they had given him.

After he had finished eating and was given access to the facilities, Joe Campbell was sent to bring Daniel to the reason for his imprisonment.

It was not a technical device. It was the last thing Daniel had expected. The NID was heading a covert excavation of part of the ancient ruins of Ain Ghazal. It made no sense. The dig had already been excavated by professional archaeologists more than once, and was somewhat of a local marvel. It had been catalogued, but nothing of serious import had been discovered, according to the modern archaeological community. Thus, Ain Ghazal had been reduced to a mere annotation in the archaeological reference books, revived every so often in introductory archaeological courses as sidenote to discussions of Jericho.

When his questions and demands as to what they were looking for went unanswered, Daniel fell back on the academic attitudes he had so often witnessed in his peers. "If you intend for me to do anything out here, you have to give me an idea of what's going on," he pointed out, glancing at Sanders who had come up on his left.

Sanders' expression never lost its haughty security. "Come," he commanded. Left with no choice, Daniel followed, noting the amount and positions of the guards liberally spaced in every part of the dig.

The lights turned on, illuminating the layers of excavation in the growing darkness. Daniel was led past all the workers to a tent on the far side of the dig. Ducking under the canvas flap, he came across a better-equipped version of the categorizing and cleaning section of the Ein Gedi dig.

There were, in the back, several young men working on the artifacts. On a separate table, however, was an object which appeared to be the gadget Sanders had described to Daniel when their positions had been reversed a week ago.

It was cylindrical, about six inches long with a diameter of half that length. The metal that composed its surface was highly polished and silver, yet non-reflective. A delicate tracery of markings wrapped around it, and Daniel moved toward it as Sanders gestured him to the table.

Daniel looked at it, and reached out to lift the object, reasonably sure that if it was dangerous, they'd stop him. It looked like it should be heavy, yet was astonishingly light. Careful fingers gently tested the metal to see if it was little more than a tinfoil shell, but despite the impression of fragility, the object was very strong.

"We don't know what it says, if it says anything." Sanders was eager to impart all the information concerning the object to Daniel, to give him anything he needed to crack the strange language.

Daniel turned over the object in his hands, gently tracing the flowing script as he half-listened to Sanders, who was talking about digital readouts mapping the surface of the cylinder, and computer programs designed to be interactive in assisting with the translation.

He put it down, and continued to listen as Sanders showed him where to find out the exact provenance of the artifact in relation to the dig as a whole, and also in relation to other artifacts. The local matrix – dirt and artifacts found in close proximity to the unusual cylinder – had been painstakingly preserved, and mapped using subterranean radar. Seriation charts were pulled up on computers, and graphical analyses were quite extensively analyzed by the staff.

Thirty minutes of direction revealed the astonishing breadth and depth of NID resources. But the remnants of the drug in his system ensured that Daniel was alert, and despite the pounding in his head, he was devoting a good deal of attention to the area around him. He was gathering information, processing the layout of the guards, and knowing where he was helped him greatly. Yet, neither Sanders nor escape held his full attention; both were simply results of the situation he was in. The _why_ of his position was what troubled him the most. Still puzzling over the reason for his capture, Daniel followed Sanders back to the cell, and allowed himself to be locked in for the night.

And as he rested on the thin mattress, staring listlessly at the ceiling, Daniel planned his escape. His mind gradually ran down as the chemical was fully screened from his system, and despite his own inclinations, Daniel fell asleep.

------------

Sorry for the excessive delay, it wasn't entirely ffnet's fault. For some reason, this chapter was exceptionally hard to write, and it slowed me up some. I apologize to all those who were expecting a Thanksgiving posting.


	10. Chapter 9

"So, how's it going?"

Galya's brush stopped moving over the recently-cleared area, and she glared up at Mac. "Do you have something specific in mind for this interruption, or are you just here to annoy me?" she asked acidly.

Mac grinned saucily, green eyes twinkling.

Galya shuddered. "You know, with that hair you do look somewhat insane," she bit out snappishly.

Mac, for all the white halo of hair on his head, stuck out his tongue. "When you're as old as I am," he retorted, completely disregarding the incongruity of his words and actions, "You're eccentric. Not insane."

Galya did not even dignify that with a response.

"And I was honestly looking for a progress report," Mac continued in a more serious vein.

"The University?"

"Wants a formal evaluation. With the discovery of the Essene site -" Mac paused, remembering the remarkable young man who had been a part of the dig for such a short time. Galya smiled a little too, and he continued quickly. "We've been granted an extension, and a budget increase, but we've also attracted much more attention. The global arena got a little whiff of what's going on here, and now the University's fending off rabid reporters and our most illustrious colleagues, all of whom are slavering for their pound of flesh." He sounded more than a little irritated.

"Well, you certainly have pounds to spare," Galya grunted, her attention back on her carefully measured plot of dirt. That startled a snort out of the somewhat grim head of the excavation.

"Takes one to know one," he threw back absently.

Galya glanced down at herself before laughing lightly. "You wish," she retorted. Noticing her friend's abstraction, she set her brush aside and rose from her crouch, eyeing him critically as she stretched. Mac winced at the sound of popping vertebrae, and Galya let out a blissful sigh, fists kneading her back.

"We're making good progress," she offered.

Mac's face was a portrait of exasperation. "I'm going to need something a little more specific," he responded snidely. "Or I'll make you give it to the Board instead of just writing something up."

Galya winced. "We are," she protested inconsequentially. She shook out her legs slightly. "You don't need to throw me to the wolves just yet," she smiled, holding out her hands.

Mac's face twisted into a bit of a scowl, and he didn't respond.

"Mac?" The slightly older man flapped a hand at her, and she began to be concerned. "Mac?"

"It's nothing," he sighed, and Galya saw a rare, worried expression on his face. It made him look weary, and old.

"Mac," she warned, carefully keeping her tone light.

"I just can't help but wonder," he capitulated softly.

Galya nodded a little, the smile more of a wince than a comforting expression. "Daniel always struck me as one who would keep in touch," she responded.

After having known one another for so long, Mac wasn't surprised at all by her perception. "We knew he was mixed up with something funny," he said at last, offering Galya his arm. The light was gently falling as dusk crept over the desert. There was a slight chill in the air.

"It's only been two weeks or so," Galya took Mac's arm, and the two headed down the bluff towards Smitty's realm. "Give it a little time," she urged. "He's no doubt finding his feet again."

Mac frowned. "I can't help but think that he wasn't really ready to face it all just yet," he sighed. "There was a powerful hurt there."

Galya raised an eye at the strange expression. Catching the look on her face, Mac grimaced. "My Great-Auntie Elise," he offered by way of explanation. At the twinkle in his best friend's eye, he concluded with a hasty, "And I'm not too keen on the military types we let waltz in here and -"

Galya's face darkened and Mac knew he'd brought out the kindred spirit in her. "I just don't see them being able to fix it," she growled. "They were, after all, at the root of the issue. And I don't believe for a second that Daniel told us everything. Remember the first night he was here?"

Contemplating the obviously censored life story Daniel had given to the dig's motley crew, Mac rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. "I may not like it," he disagreed, "but I think that in the end, they're the only ones who could fix their mistake."

Galya grunted somewhat bad-temperedly, and Mac snorted. "You sound like a boar," he commented snidely.

Galya let out a hoot of laughter as she stepped under the pavilion, lengthening her stride so that she was almost dragging him along. "Better than being a bore," she said pointedly. Ziv, standing in front of them in line, turned warily at Mac's pointed groan of disbelief. Seeing the two of them, his eyes widened and he turned back around, tilting his head to let the fringes of his blonde bangs hang in his eyes.

He nudged the slightly taller, dark-haired figure in front of him out of the conversation with his fiancée, and jerked a thumb back at the two foremost professors in charge of the dig. "Check it out," he grinned.

Katie and Tobe glanced back at the debate in full swing, and as voices rose Katie prudently stepped behind Tobe. "Oh, I see it now," he said teasingly. "I'm easily sacrificed in the face of self-preservation, am I?"

"Tobe, you know I love you," Katie replied with perfect seriousness. "But I don't love you enough to go any closer to that!" she pointed at the whirlwind of noise and gestures that had once, presumably, been two rational humans. Tobe grinned and ducked behind the smaller Ziv, who was backing slowly down the line of food, away from the increasingly raucous dervish that was Galya and Mac.

Scary phrases such as 'report for the Board' and 'full site evaluation' were being thrown through the air with frightening ease, and fielded by opposing sides with terrifying aplomb. Ziv, closest in range to the combatants, shuddered convulsively.

"Say," said Tobe with some interest as Ziv flinched back from a particular barrage of sound – 'on-site review' – "If you die, can I have your stereo?"

The blond Aussie glared at him, and was nearly taken out by his own shoelaces as he stumbled away from what was promising to be a war zone that would put most of the Middle East to shame. "No," he snapped. "I'm going to send it to Daniel." He sniffed haughtily, then slipped past the pair fixated with morbid fascination on the phrase 'rescinding of tenure' to take a place farther up in the food line.

"Hey!" Katie and Tobe objected in tandem, for a moment drowning out Galya and Mac's argument in their indignation. Once again, Katie moved further up in line in an attempt to get away from the two, who were arguing like an old married couple without the drawbacks of ever having been one.

By the time they had gotten their food, the fight looked as if it was turning nuclear, and so without hesitation Louie slammed down his tray and hollered, "TIME OUT!" at the top of his lungs.

The resulting silence was a gift from the gods, and there were several relieved sighs from around the table at the temporary cessation of hostilities. Between the senior members of the dig, they managed to get a reasonable review of progress together, and decided that Louie, for his sin of rudely interrupting a calm discussion between two sensible adults, wouldbe grantedthe priviledgeof typing it up.

After the much-ritualized evening bath, they once again gathered around the campfire. Katie and Tobe snuggled together, with Louie tending to his ever-peeling nose on their right, and Michelle and Saloma speaking in low tones to each other to their left. Ziv was looking somewhat nervous about being unwillingly ensconced between Mac and Galya, but since he had the fiddle out, the truce had lasted into the late evening.

When the relative quiet around the fire turned expectant, with speculative glances at Ziv as he carefully tuned his violin, a sweet voice broke the silence. "What do you think?" asked Saloma quietly, glancing at the others. "How about something a little patriotic?" The tiny smile was enough for the others, and Ziv smiled.

"Lead us in a round?" he offered gently.

"Alright," she agreed. Then she grinned. "Something Daniel would love if he were here," she said. "Hebrew first, then English. Ready?"

Her low, rich voice blended beautifully with Michelle's higher counterpoint as they began to sing.

_Lo yisagoy el goy herev,_

_Lo ilmedu od milhama_

_Lo yisagoy el goy herev_

_Lo ilmedu od milhama_

_Ein Od Od Ein_

_Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow_

_Don't walk behind me, I may not lead_

_Just walk beside me and be my friend_

_And together we will walk on the Path of Hashem_

_Ein Od Od Ein_

The round continued, and the others joined in, until the entire group had gone through the whole song three times. The sound, at once hopeful and mournful, rose through the air over the dig. To those singing to a friend far away, the light from the fire and the stars was the only illumination for their souls, the sound of the crackling fire and the music calling to each of them and lending a soothing, magical air to the evening.

Therefore, none of them was prepared for a dark figure to stumble into the circle of light created by the fire as the last notes from Ziv's violin died away.

- - - - - - - - - - -

nervous glances to stage left and right

I'm back!

Thank you to all of those prodding me to get my butt moving. I love you all, treats to everyone! In defense of my relative silence recently, I must make a confession. I lost the thread of this story (needless to say, I have it again, and no, I won't bore you with an explanation. :) I am without cable at college, and so what I've been doing for weeks during winter break is binging on Stargate, trying to get a feel for my characters again. I was really lost for a bit, but am clawing my way back. Sorry for the delay.

The correct translation of the Hebrew given above, as I understand it is, "And neither shall nation raise up sword against nation, and neither shall any (country/people/insert noun here) war anymore." That is (minus the stuff in parenthesis for your clarification), apparently, a direct and correct translation, but if anyone who speaks the lingo knows of a better way of putting it, I'd really appreciate it.

As a New Year's Resolution, I solemnly vow that you will not wait as long for the next chapter as you have for this one. : )


	11. Chapter 10

Teal'c entered Major Carter's lab, unsurprised by the sight within. The Major's blonde head was resting on the map she had spent the last day and a half perusing. O'Neill was snoring lightly in his more precarious perch, seated at a chair with his chin propped up by a fist.

Daniel Jackson had been missing for eight days.

The car that Rachel Mayers had signed out of the SGC had been discovered, abandoned, well within the search parameters. There, the dogs lost the scent that had so briefly appeared. Marks in the clearing led Teal'c to believe that perhaps the NID had gone airborne in their attempts to put more distance between their hostage and any assistance rendered by the SGC. O'Neill agreed.

Major Carter had remained back in the lab, recreating a digital image from partial satellite signals in order to try to work out something more. To her frustration, she met another block within the satellites under US government control. She had then attempted to hack into satellite signals utilized by corporations and non-governmental organizations for alternate images, but fewer of these images captured the time and place desired.

Several key shots confirmed suspicions that Daniel Jackson had been subdued and loaded aboard a helicopter, which had immediately headed southward. Area 51 had been scoured for any sign of the archaeologist, but O'Neill had voiced his skepticism in the briefing that Daniel Jackson was there. Teal'c agreed – it was simply too obvious.

Glancing over at his friends, Teal'c decided that they needed the rest. Cautiously shifting part of the map out from under Major Carter, he began carefully going through the materials scattered across her desk.

An assortment of maps, along with records of the landings and departures from nearby bases and airports, were neatly piled next to the computer, which had long since shut itself down. Remnants of food and drink containers, several of which Teal'c had brought to the lab himself, were interspersed among notes scrawled in haste.

His gaze was caught by several satellite images that Major Carter had zoomed in on, refined, and then printed out. One showed a figure surrounded by an armed group. Beneath was another picture, in which Major Carter had captured a smaller figure injecting the contents of a syringe into their friend. The third showed Daniel Jackson being lifted from the ground onto a stretcher, intended for the helicopter that was mostly cut out from the frame. Teal'c's eyes narrowed on seeing his friend's pale, lax features.

_SG-1 to the briefing room immediately. SG-1 to the briefing room immediately._

O'Neill jerked at the announcement, almost falling from his chair. Teal'c raised a brow, watching the gray-haired man suck in a deep breath and shake out his hand. Carter shifted blearily, rubbing at her neck as she blinked and sat upright. "Sir?" The end of the query was swallowed by a yawn.

"Let's go, Carter," O'Neill grunted, gaining his feet. Spotting the third member of his team, he said with some surprise, "Teal'c. Where did you come from?"

They moved swiftly down the hallway. The absence of blaring klaxons indicated that most likely, General Hammond wished to speak with them on an important matter – and right now, the only matter of importance to Teal'c was the recovery of Daniel Jackson. "I have been perusing the materials Major Carter believes may help us in discovering the whereabouts of Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa replied. Personnel pressed themselves against the walls, keeping well out of the way.

Carter sighed. "I haven't had much luck," she admitted as they waited in front of the elevator. She covered a yawn in one hand. The three remained silent, each lost in his or her own thoughts, until they reached the briefing room.

"Sir?" O'Neill inquired, eyes sharp.

General Hammond was sitting at the table, talking calmly on the phone. He glanced up at their entrance, and murmured quietly, "Thank you, Professor. He's here now." Hammond was clearly relieved, the deep lines carved by worry fading from his eyes and brow. He seemed less world-weary, and Teal'c was grateful for the reprieve.

Teal'c cocked his head, watching as O'Neill took the phone, briskly barking out his name. A brow rose as their team's leader went silent. A moment later, he sat down hard, all color draining from his face.

"How is he?" he demanded into the receiver, voice shaking slightly.

There was only one person he could be talking about. Teal'c heard an indrawn breath next to him, and glanced at Major Carter. Hope shone out of her face, unable for her to hide if she tried.

"Dammit, just tell me how he is!" O'Neill snapped, flushing as the voice on the other end rose in condemnation. He quieted almost immediately.

"I don't care what you think of me, but keep him safe. We'll be there to pick him up immediately," he answered flatly, knuckles white where they gripped the plastic.

The person on the other end apparently had a strident opinion about that comment as well. Teal'c's excellent hearing could catch something of what the man on the other end was saying – most of it having to do with O'Neill's dubious ability to watch over a certain stubborn archaeologist, as well as a rather scathing mention of the Colonel's parentage. He himself smiled slightly at that.

"Thank you." The words sounded as if they were being dragged out of SG-1's team leader. He almost dropped the phone into the receiver.

"We've found Daniel," he said, as soon as the connection had broken. O'Neill pushed the chair away from the table, and looked to Hammond. "General, permission to -"

"Granted," Hammond broke in. "There's a car topside waiting to take you to Nellis. Plane's waiting. Go."

O'Neill nodded, almost rushing from the room in his haste. Teal'c and Major Carter were on his heels, and Teal'c blessed the woman for asking what he too wanted desperately to know.

"Where is he, sir? How is he?"

O'Neill shook his head, rounding a corner. "He's back in Israel, in Ein Gedi. The crew there recognized him. Apparently, he stumbled into camp not half an hour ago, looking like hell. He insisted that they call here immediately, and hasn't spoken since. There's nothing obviously wrong about him, but Mackerel sounded worried. And I don't like that," the other man snapped. He tapped at the elevator call button repeatedly, tensely waiting for the car.

Mackerel?

"Mackerel?" Major Carter echoed Teal'c's confusion.

"Professor Mac-whatshisname."

"Professor Macauly," Teal'c corrected automatically. The doors opened, and SG-1 waited with bad grace for the car to empty before piling in. "He was most adamant on Daniel Jackson's behalf when we visited last."

"I remember," Major Carter concurred lowly, glancing to where O'Neill was leaning against the elevator wall. It would have been difficult not to, Teal'c observed. The unacknowledged clashes between the military and academic opinions as to Daniel Jackson's well-being had been quite volatile. The Jaffa had the suspicion that this time, it was likely to be even worse.

The ride to the surface seemed interminable. Signing out without bothering to change, SG-1 raced to the car, talking quietly amongst themselves as they rode to the airstrip. There was planning, although no one had any real idea of what to expect – the call had been singularly lacking in details.

It seemed to his companions that they ran out of conversation all to quickly. Teal'c was no stranger to silence, yet the tension-wracked, expectant quietude that blossomed as they boarded the plane seemed enough to set his friends' teeth on edge. Once airborne, the Jaffa sat lotus-style on the empty floor of the cargo plane, and began breathing deeply in preparation for kel'no'reem.

"What are you doing that for?" O'Neill interrupted. Teal'c did not need his eyes open to know that the expression on the other man's face was a collage of worry. It was easy to see that O'Neill was directing his anxiety into anything that would take his mind off the length of their journey – and what waited for them at its conclusion.

"It is quite probable that Daniel Jackson will need us at full capacity to assist him," Teal'c calmly articulated. "I prepare myself for that eventuality. You would be prudent to do likewise."

An incensed huff was the only answer the Jaffa received, and he returned his attention once more to the soothing cycle of breathing, directing his entire self to the rhythmic series of inhalations and exhalations.

The noise of the plane and the faint murmurs from its occupants soon blurred together in a comforting drone, and all conscious thought dissolved along pathways of blood and muscle. His knowledge of self seemed far outside his physical being at this moment, suspended from a distance as he lost himself within the pattern of breaths. Untouched by his worries, Teal'c became nothing more than a vessel of tranquility, emptied of all apprehension and disquiet. He lived for – and because of – the air rushing into and from his lungs.

The minute changes in altitude first caught his attention, as if from a distance. He changed his breathing pattern, rising up slowly through the layers of his mind. His eyes opened.

Directly across from him, Major Carter was lying asleep on one of the narrow benches lining the inside of the plain. He heard a rustling noise, and turned to the right, towards the rear of the plane. O'Neill brought a sandwich to his mouth, chewing as he regarded them both.

Teal'c noticed that both his teammates looked much rested, having also changed into desert BDUs, and was driven to wonder how long he had been in kel'no'reem. He felt refreshed, and somewhat in need of sustenance. Rising, he moved to the back of the plane to change into the more acceptable brown desert garb, before returning to seat himself in his former position. Accepting the food O'Neill held out to him, he inclined his head and stretched out his legs.

The two ate quietly for some time, until the plane banked in a turn steep enough to rouse Major Carter. The blonde woman rose, looking much better for her rest, and joined her companions on the floor, where they were eating.

"We're prepping to land," she said. "Where will they be dropping us?"

"Ben Gurion International," O'Neill replied. "The US Embassy's been contacted, and we've secured military transport straight to Ein Gedi. ETA from the landing site is about three hours, straight across the desert."

Carter's lips thinned, and Teal'c had to exert an effort to keep his own brows from lowering in frustration. O'Neill, seeing their expressions, raised a placating hand. "It's the best that could be done," he assured them. "I'm not happy about the delay either. I'm going to call the dig site as soon as we land."

"Mac gave you his number?" Major Carter inquired somewhat skeptically.

O'Neill shrugged. "Apparently, Daniel said to. They weren't inclined to argue with him."

The plane banked steeply, and the three reluctantly stood, making their way to the benches and belting themselves in for a landing. Once on the ground, they geared up fully, pulling on vests and weapons. Teal'c carefully tied a bandana around his head, the action reminding him of the many times the team had prepared for missions together. The last thing Daniel Jackson had done before they left the locker room was tie his own bandana, before replacing his glasses.

They were far from the more active areas of the airstrip, and were greeted by several US soldiers upon exiting the aircraft. O'Neill immediately took charge, dismissing the men and moving behind the wheel. Major Carter sat 'shotgun', while Teal'c sat in the back. O'Neill had been studying maps and routes while his team had rested, and they made good time. The trip, for all its brevity in comparison to the flight, seemed much longer. While Teal'c was disinclined to notice such things, he did make note of his companions' tension. While they knew that Daniel Jackson had not been seriously injured, from the force of Mac's reaction, he was not in good condition – and this was a point of concern for them all.

By the time they reached Ein Gedi, it was nearly noon, local time. They had flown over the Arctic Circle, trying to take the quickest non-commercial route to Israel. The plane had been powerful enough to make the airport nine hours from the time when they had received word of Daniel Jackson's location.

Jumping from the vehicle, O'Neill moved swiftly up the hill to the young man waiting for them. He had brown hair, his face was tanned and dusty from his outdoor work, and tiny lines around his eyes revealed his worry. "I'm Tobe," he introduced himself quickly.

"Where's Daniel?" O'Neill demanded, not in the mood for polite chit-chat.

"Follow me," the young man said, turning toward a series of tents not far from what looked to be an oasis. He glanced back. "Just let me warn you – he's not himself."

"Explain," O'Neill snapped, quickening the pace.

The boy eyed him warily. "He came stumbling into camp last night, looking as if he hadn't eaten for several days. He was exhausted, but couldn't rest. He was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, and couldn't hide the marks - "

"What marks?" Teal'c ground out, voice dark with menace.

The boy jumped, nearly tripping as he led them closer to the oasis. "Needle marks. Like a junkie. Bruises. On his arms and wrists – like someone had to hold or tie him down. He's all keyed up – shaking, but not with cold. He's tried to rest, but he can't. We were afraid he would run – he wasn't sure if he was followed, and he didn't want to stay. He wouldn't tell us who did this to him – he just insisted that he needed you." There was a brief pause as the boy looked them over, but all of SG-1 was heartened at the statement. "Galya asked him how he got here, and he told us he had been kidnapped and held in Jordan. God alone knows how he got across the border without getting caught or killed."

Teal'c consciously flexed his fingers, surprised to find that they uncurled from tightly clenched fists. O'Neill's face was drawn in fury, and even Major Carter, who usually slid her emotions behind a military mask, was enraged. Tobe brought them outside a tent within a cluster of others like it, and then called out cheerfully to Mac that he had brought the friends Daniel had asked for.

The slowly entered the tent, one at a time. Even with Tobe's words, the sight that turned to face them was shocking. Daniel was filthy, covered in dirt and dust – over his face, caked into his clothes and hair. The wide blue eyes were teary and bloodshot, and with several days' growth of beard, he looked wild. His entire body was shivering, minute, comprehensive convulsions that made him tremble, and there were dark smudges under each eye. Whenever anyone came within two feet of him, he shied nervously away.

"Hey, guys," he said quietly, voice a little hoarse.

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c stepped forward slowly, keeping his voice low and soothing, his hands in the open, as if he were coaxing a wild animal to him. "What has transpired?"

The archaeologist gave him a tired, wavering smile. "A lot," he breathed, before coughing harshly.

Major Carter stepped forward, proffering her canteen, and Daniel accepted it with murmured thanks. He took only a small sip, and O'Neill was gazing at him with obviously worried eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Daniel's tired smile was a small, wincing thing that twisted Teal'c's heart. "Better, now," he said. "But – we have a very big problem. We have to get back to the US. After -" the archaeologist broke off, glancing at Mac and Galya.

Despite his obvious exhaustion, Daniel seemed in full possession of his faculties. Teal'c felt a frown twisting his lips. The effects of whatever drug they had given him must have worn off – and it could not be merely a sedative. In the sunlight shining into the tent, the bruising and small smears of blood were very evident, although Daniel didn't seem to notice them.

Catching their cue, the two archaeologists stood up and took their leave with murmured excuses. As soon as the tent flap fell, Daniel slumped into a camp chair, raising shaking hands to his face.

"Daniel?" Major Carter moved to kneel at his side, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. He jerked, pulling away at the touch before he looked up at her shocked face. "Sorry," the linguist whispered.

"It's okay," the woman soothed gently. She glanced at O'Neill. Teal'c himself moved to stand next to Daniel Jackson, close enough for reassurance, but not discomfort. The leader of the team moved to crouch next to Daniel.

"Hey," he said softly.

Daniel smiled, and this time it looked almost real. "Hey," he murmured. "What brings you round these parts?"

O'Neill pursed his lips. "Well, we're looking for a friend of ours. Bright fella – archaeologist, linguist, anthropologist. Speaks - what was it, almost thirty languages by now. The NID snatched him, and we got wind that he turned up here. You wouldn't happen to know where we could find him?"

"Jack," Daniel protested, a little bit of his old energy shining through.

"Daniel," O'Neill smiled.

Daniel laughed a little, and Jack reached out and ruffled his hair gently. Teal'c, sensing the slight relaxation in the tense body they were all so focused on, quietly moved and gathered several nearby chairs. As he pulled them to the small huddle in the middle of the tent, he listened avidly to the light banter between the other two men. It felt as if the last piece of a puzzle had snapped into place. It felt right – it felt good.

But Teal'c could not forget the pain they had all experienced, and the injustice done to Daniel Jackson, at the hands of the NID. Quietly he vowed to himself to avenge his friend. He glanced at O'Neill, and saw an identical vow shine out of his eyes, before they turned to Daniel and softened. There was much they needed to know.

When they were all seated, Jack asked, "Danny, you want to tell us what happened?"

-

Someone asked for a bit more of Teal'c's perspective, and so I gave this chap to him. It's a bit longer than the norm – in an apology for lateness. Hope you enjoy!


	12. Chapter 11

Daniel kept his eyes trained on the floor. "Well, it's a bit complicated." He missed the worried look that Sam threw at the colonel. He raised his face a bit, choosing his next words carefully. "The NID brought me to a project of theirs, at Ain Ghazel in Jordan. Remember the cylinder we heard about?"

"Colored fish," Jack commented glibly.

Daniel grimaced. "It was there, and it wasn't what they thought it was, not by a long shot."

"Can you describe it?" Sam asked, eager to hear more.

Daniel frowned, his hands lifting in a parody of his usual verve. "It was about six inches," he measured out. "Metallic, though no one told me what type of alloy. It's very possible they didn't know. It was lightly engraved across its entire surface, though the pattern at first appeared more as a decoration than anything useful. The NID tested it and apparently received extensive energy readings from it. Lieutenant Sanders was convinced that it was some sort of compacted energy source."

"Sanders, huh?" Jack asked, looking Daniel up and down. "He do that?"

Daniel gently touched the corner of his mouth, which was split and swollen. "Ah, yea," he said, not really answering the question. Jack's brown eyes were fixed on the needle marks and bruising up and down his arms.

"They wanted me to open it, figure out how to work it, and so I had access to almost all the information they had collected so far."

"Did you figure out what it is?" Sam asked.

Daniel gave her a slight smile. "Well, it wasn't an energy source. The engravings weren't a language, exactly, either. The entire container was an incredibly complex puzzle-box, in fact. The energy readings came from the built-in security measures."

Sam's nose was wrinkled in confusion. "But for the NID to have traced any appreciable energy readings, and for them to have gotten the impression that it was an energy source far beyond the naquadah generator, those security measures must have been . . . extensive."

Daniel laughed a little, bitterness creeping into the sound. "Whoever created it in essence strapped a naquadah bomb – or two – to it, to ensure that whatever was inside was destroyed unless the correct person opened it."

Sam's eyes widened, and her shock was evident.

"I didn't manage to get hold of the actual cylinder," Daniel continued, ignoring the byplay going on around him. "When I got the opportunity to run, I had to take it. There definitely wouldn't have been another chance. The people holding me knew what they were doing."

"Daniel Jackson, by what means were you able to escape?" Teal'c's voice was low and soothing, neutral. Daniel closed his eyes for a moment.

"I was kept separate from the main area of operations. Every morning I was escorted by two armed guards and Lt. Sanders to my 'work station'," his lips twisted briefly, and then the emotion was gone. Daniel blinked, and explained. "They would bring me back to the holding area at the conclusion of each day. The point of greatest vulnerability was always going through the door – it was only large enough to admit one person at a time. Once I knew the routine, I was able to take advantage of that. I managed to knock them out and made a run for it. It took me about four days to get here – I lost a night to getting across the border. The NID site isn't that far, actually – just on the other side of the Dead Sea."

Jack blinked. "So they only held you for what – four days?"

"Only three, actually," Daniel said quietly. "I was sedated for most of the trip to Ain Ghazel, and it took me a little to wake up."

"Danny, I know you're good," Jack said, "but usually even you need more than three days to figure out an alien language, especially one you've never seen before, without any references." Jack always knew what his kids were up do. He may not have the specifics on how they did their jobs, but he knew their _modus operandi_. He'd seen how far Daniel had gotten with what he had salvaged from Earnest's planet – nowhere, and slowly at that. "Not to mention you were practically defusing a bomb at the same time."

Daniel winced a little, his mouth firmly shut, blue eyes fixed on the ground as if he had just discovered some meaning of life stuff almost under his toes.

"Daniel?" Sam asked, reaching for his hand where it rested limply on his knee. She gave his fingers a light squeeze, and smiled when his hand curled, somewhat on its own volition, around hers. He needed the contact.

Sam gently tugged his hand toward her, baring the inside of his arm and the cruel marks there. She gently touched a fingertip to one of the bruises, and Daniel shook, a little, drawing away reflexively, turning his head from her.

"Danny?" Jack asked, concerned by the reaction. He leant forward, to look at the young man sitting across from him. "What happened?" He would not accept silence as an answer.

Daniel grimaced in disgust. "They gave me something," he said finally. "I wanted to know what it was, and Sanders was more than happy to fill me in."

"Daniel?" Sam pressed gently, blue eyes wide with concern.

"Glutamate," Daniel returned, head lifting to stare straight at Jack. "A naturally produced neural chemical that stimulates the brain. I don't know any more than that – Janet could probably help you. The NID created an alternate isotope that would bombard the brain's receptor neurons and be relatively immune to the effects of naturally produced depressants."

He'd been forced to think, forced to work, unable to rest because even though his body was screaming its exhaustion, his conscious mind couldn't calm down long enough to relinquish control to his involuntary systems. It was a pretty safe bet that there was a lot of the chemical still coursing through his system, given his relative alertness and actions.

"They made you work for them," Jack said evenly, trying to keep his rage in check.

Daniel raised his chin proudly. "I may not have had a choice as to whether or not I solved the puzzle," he returned shortly, "But I spoke to no one, didn't leave anything I wrote down." He rubbed the side of his head gently. "It's all up here." He reached into a pocket, and pulled out a folded scrap of paper. "And here."

"What is it?" Jack asked, taking the paper and unfolding it. There was a meaningless series of scribbles, marks, dots and dashes on the battered scrap.

"I copied what I found on the parchment inside the puzzle box once I got here," Daniel sighed. He'd been afraid that the clarity of his memory would fade with the drug. "I destroyed the parchment and disabled the security devices before I put it back together. My guard was . . . distracted, and didn't notice." He'd waited nearly six hours for that chance, after figuring the puzzle out after the first day.

"What does it say?" Sam asked, glancing at the paper. Quite honestly she would bet that it made as much sense to her – upside down – as it did to anyone but Daniel.

A wry smile got away from the slightly abused archaeologist. "It supposedly gives the location of the Sibylline Prophecies. They were a series of eschatological prophecies recorded between 150 BC and 180 AD, by female priestesses in the service to the Greek god Apollo. The Muses were his servants, and his most famous temple was in Greece, at Delphi – commonly called the 'navel of the earth'. Virgil gives an account of the Oracle at Delphi in his _Aeneid_, where the Sibyl is described as a woman possessed by the god Apollo. She would write these prophecies on leaves on the cave floor, and when a wind rose the words would be jumbled and lost. She was persuaded by Aeneas to relate the details of his predicted journey to the underworld verbally rather than in written form. Other common mythological references say that the Oracle, usually a woman, would rave while in the grip of the god's power – after sacred herbs had been thrown on the sacrificial fire – and nearby priests and priestesses would interpret the message for the supplicant."

Daniel paused for a moment, before taking a breath and continuing on the same thread. "The Sibylline Prophecies are something slightly different. Fourteen books of _post eventu_ – after the fact – revelations survive to this day. In actuality, many were written by various unnamed Jewish and Christian authors imitating the style of the so-called pagan prophetesses." He leant forward, still in full flow, gesturing at the paper Jack was still holding. "But I have reason to believe that the prophecies this parchment refers to are even earlier than the surviving books today. Book Three is the earliest surviving manuscript, a Jewish oracle that condemns Rome for idolatry and injustice, among other things. It also predicts the defeat of Rome by a Ptolemy who is more favorably inclined towards the Jews."

An emphatic finger touched the paper, and Jack glanced at it only momentarily before refocusing on the linguist, who seemed caught in full lecture mode. "Daniel?" he asked, stifling a smile and gently trying to urge the other man back on topic.

"This parchment mentions the later books only in passing; the main focus revolves around several earlier books that have not been discovered, or are believed to be destroyed. But, I'm almost certain that this common assumption is false. I also think that there are more books out there than most scholars believe – up to seven more preceding Book Three, skewing the chronology considerably."

"Daniel, what does this have to do with -" the teasingly impatient question was halted by an upraised figure.

"The Sibylline prophecies typically related a future defeat or disaster to the reader, although most of them were written after the fact," Daniel said quickly. "Apollo was the god of prophecy, archery and music. He was the grandson, after a fashion, of Cronos." Eyebrows rose at this – and no one needed help following the connection. "Legend holds that, in order to gain his seat at Delphi, he fought a mighty battle with a gigantic earth-serpent, and he was reputed to have an interest in healing." The serpent was the obvious clue, but Daniel was also giving more foundation to this by mentioning the healing devices. "His principal symbol is the sun, although that is more commonly the province of the god Helios."

Looking around the group, it was clear that this last connection escaped them all.

"So – what, you think this guy was a Goa'uld?" Jack asked.

Daniel shook his head slightly. "Actually," he said. "I'm not sure. He could have been a former host, or a Tok'ra, or even . . ." Daniel struggled with himself a moment before lowly admitting, "Or even a Harcessis."

There was a moment of stunned silence. "I'm lost," Jack freely conceded.

Daniel shifted in his seat, sighing deeply. "According to common myth, the birth of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis was a result of Zeus's . . . activities with Leto. When Zeus' rightful wife, Hera, discovered his betrayal – not an uncommon event – she was roused to fury and sent a serpent to pursue Leto to the ends of the earth, so that she would be unable to rest long enough to give birth."

"Obviously, the snake failed," Jack commented, sitting back languidly in his chair. The precarious piece of furniture nearly folded under him, and he jerked upright. Daniel gave him a small smile before continuing. "I believe that if we were to find these Prophecies, they could hold information useful to us."

Jack shrugged. "It's worth a try." If Daniel thought it might be worth it, even though Jack was a little skeptical, he'd just gotten his linguist back. They needed to rest up, and while Daniel's explanation had been remarkably thorough, it had also been strangely scattered. As if he'd thought over everything he ever knew, trying to understand what was going on, and had tied all his knowledge into one idea so massive that he himself didn't quite comprehend it.

As if his brain had been on forced overdrive for days, as if he hadn't eaten or slept in that time, as if he was on the verge of collapse. They needed to get back to the SGC, and Daniel needed to rest and recuperate.

Daniel's smile faded a little. "It's worth more than that," he said tiredly, reaching toward the paper once again. His eyes flicked over the nonsensical scribblings, before coming to rest on one line near the end. "This is a gate address."


	13. Chapter 12

Teal'c was concerned.

It had been several hours since Daniel Jackson had spoken with them. In that time, O'Neill had gathered the team and bid the archaeologists goodbye, driving to the military airbase with all speed. Teal'c himself understood the other man's worry – Daniel Jackson would be much safer back in the security of the SGC.

Thoughts of the traitor flickered through his mind, and Teal'c's fists clenched in impotent fury. This time, Daniel Jackson would be properly watched over, and such would not occur again.

Teal'c glanced over to where the archaeologist in question was leaning against the wall of the military transport, blinking slowly. It was almost afternoon, and it appeared that the alarming energy that Daniel Jackson had exhibited as a side effect of the drugs he had been subjected to was finally wearing off. The young man was nearly a picture definition of the Tau'ri euphemism 'burned out'. There were dark circles under dull eyes, standing out harshly in his pale face. Teal'c could not see all the bruises, for Daniel Jackson had his arms tightly folded across his chest, but a few greenish-yellow marks were visible. It was almost sickeningly reminiscent of when the archaeologist had returned from the mental institution.

Major Carter sat next to Daniel, but not too close. Whenever she got within a foot of him, he would tense, and it was obvious that he was fighting the instinct to curl up on himself.

"Daniel, do you want some coffee?" she asked quietly, holding a mug out. She was openly startled when he shook his head, refusing the offer. O'Neill glanced away for a moment, and when he turned back his lips were tight.

The three conversed quietly, and Teal'c joined the conversation, telling Daniel Jackson of inconsequential things that had happened in Colorado Springs during his absence. As intended, the archaeologist dropped into sleep not long after they began speaking, lulled by soft voices.

O'Neill glanced at the sleeping scientist for a moment, judging the depth of his slumber, before he nodded grimly at the others.

The remainder of the flight passed in relieved quietude. The three members of SG-1 were too wary to rejoice just yet at having Daniel back, but there was an ease in the air that had been missing on their journey to Israel.

When they landed several hours later, O'Neill insisted that they let Daniel sleep, and brought the car into the hangar. Teal'c gently transferred the unconscious archaeologist into the backseat, and Major Carter slipped in next to him to buckle his seat belt. The drive to the mountain was comfortably silent, each person in the car becoming more relaxed and confident the closer they came to Cheyanne. Finally, passing security and parking, O'Neill smiled at his team in the rear-view mirror. "Well, looks like we made it."

Major Carter grinned, and Teal'c's lips twitched upward in a small, satisfied smile.

"Daniel? Wake up," Major Carter coaxed, gently shaking the archaeologist's arm. She called him a little louder when he didn't so much as twitch. "Daniel?" she shook him harder, but the archaeologist didn't react. Her voice gradually rose, as she continued calling him, and a frown rose up on her features. O'Neill had opened the car door, and gently smacked Daniel's cheeks. Even that did not elicit a response. Concerned, Major Carter felt his pulse, and jumped in surprise. "Sir!"

"Speak to me, Carter," O'Neill ordered tersely.

"We need Janet. His pulse is racing, but he isn't sweating or fevered. We can't wake him. Something's wrong."

"Teal'c!" his CO snapped, pointing to the guards.

Without further instruction, Teal'c ran to the security area and commandeered the phone. His call down to the Infirmary gave them seven minutes of panicked waiting before Janet arrived with a team and a stretcher. Teal'c could see the shock on his teammates' faces; he was battling dismay himself. They were so close, in the mountain itself, and had been too confident of their safety.

SG-1, or three-fourths of it at any rate, was forced to wait for the elevator to descend to the Infirmary with Daniel, before being able to follow.

"Screw this," O'Neill hissed, moving for the stairs. It was slower, but at least they were going in the right direction.

By the time they reached the Infirmary, Janet was drawing blood, but she'd seen the needle marks. "Do you know what they gave him?" she snapped the minute SG-1 set foot in the door.

"Glutamate," Major Carter replied immediately. "They told him that what they gave him was an engineered glutamate isotope."

Dr. Frasier nodded curtly, and began calling to various nurses, demanding a specific array of drugs. The frenzied activity began to calm, and Teal'c could see O'Neill daring to take a breath, slumping a little as the situation was revealed to be completely in the Doctor's control.

At that moment, the klaxons went off. _"SG-1 report to the control room. SG-1 report to the control room." _

"And it's another fun-filled day at the SGC," O'Neill snarled. The guards at the security checkpoint must have been ordered to alert Hammond as soon as they arrived. Major Carter shrugged. None of them moved. Dr. Frasier caught sight of them, staunchly planted just far away enough to avoid summary dismissal. "Go," she said.

Teal'c looked at the archaeologist. The noise of the klaxons had not disturbed Daniel Jackson in the slightest, which in turn disturbed each member of his team.

_"SG-1, report to the control room immediately. SG-1, report to the control room immediately."_

"Go, _now_!" Dr. Frasier snapped. "I'll keep you informed."

Accepting her word, Teal'c led the way out the door, and SG-1 broke into a jog, sprinting to the control room. Once there, it was plain to see that Major Carter's expertise was called for. The wormhole was . . . flickering was the only word to describe it.

"What's happening?" she asked Siler, sitting before the diagnostic computer.

"SG-2 was returning from P89-647. The 'gate was located in a country called . . . Kelowna, by the locals. Ferretti pulled out when he heard about the dynamic political situation; the three major countries there are locked in an arms race. SG-2 just got through when . . . _this_ started happening," Davis explained rapidly.

Teal'c listened, somewhat concerned, as he gazed at the 'gate.

"Radiation levels are rising," Major Carter murmured, frowning worriedly. "Close the iris."

The event horizon, which seemed to be sputtering in and out, was blocked from view.

"Levels are still rising." There was a hint of surprise, and a bit of apprehension, in the Major's tone.

O'Neill moved to the intercom. "Evacuate the 'Gate room, now!"

SF's streamed out of the room at the order.

"Radiation still rising. We have to cut the connection."

"Major?"

"General Hammond," Major Carter replied, keeping her eyes on the screen. "I recommend emergency shut-down procedures. This radiation levels are rising exponentially, with no sign of slowing – in fact, the rate of increase is accelerating. The iris won't provide adequate protection for long."

Hammond nodded, and Teal'c stood back. "Colonel, emergency shut down protocol."

"Yes, sir," O'Neill responded. The two officers swiftly input security codes, effectively locking out and protecting the computer systems. The colonel ran to the power main, slamming it shut and cutting all power to the 'gate, mere seconds after Major Carter had begun to speak.

The sudden silence, broken only by the noise of the control room staff heaving a collective sigh, was deafening.

Hammond looked over the control room staff, counting his team members. "SG-1, where's Dr. Jackson?" he asked quietly.

The team members exchanged glances before O'Neill responded, obviously subdued, "He's in the Infirmary."

Hammond glared at no one in particular, yet the whole staff somehow contrived to be busily occupied. "I'll expect a full report."

"Yes, sir," came simultaneous responses from Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter.

"Indeed," Teal'c answered.

"Colonel O'Neill, if you and your team would accompany me to the debriefing room, I'd like you to be present when we debrief SG-2, to see if you can add anything to their report about how and why the 'gate might have malfunctioned."

O'Neill nodded, and SG-1 followed Hammond into the briefing room. Teal'c, O'Neill and Carter listened quietly while Ferretti elucidated the situation for the General.

"The Kelownans seemed to be on a technological level near to ours, but they were locked into an arms race with the two other countries that comprised the planet's continents. I was hesitant to start trade negotiations, given what I knew of the Eurondan situation." Ferretti paused, glancing somewhat nervously at O'Neill, but SG-1 didn't react. "When I heard that they were in the process of building a bomb made out of a recently discovered material several floors below us, I thought it would be prudent to withdraw and discuss the situation with you, sir."

"And once your team came through the 'gate we began noticing the strange wormhole phenomena," the General mused, closing the report folder in front of him.

"Captain," Major Carter began, leaning forward in her seat and fixing her attention on Ferretti. "What more can you tell us about the material they were building the bomb out of?"

Ferretti shrugged. "They were already aware of naquadah, Major. This new material was recently discovered, and the officials we spoke to had high hopes of its offensive potential, even beyond the capabilities of naquadah."

"Major?" Hammond asked.

"The radiation measured coming through the wormhole was incredibly potent, sir. It was almost something I would expect finding in the blast range of a bomb, although this was many times stronger than any naquadah-enhanced bomb we might be able to construct."

"Major, are you suggesting that the bomb the Kelownans were constructing may have somehow gone off?"

Major Carter shrugged expressively. "The Kelownans admittedly knew very little about the material they were working with, sir, aside from it's potential destructive capabilities. They were experimenting with it by attempting to create an explosive device. That is dangerous and difficult work in any situation, without the added political pressure from a global arms race. Accidents have been known to happen."

"Can you make any speculations as to the range of the disaster, in that instance?" Hammond asked.

Major Carter stared down at the table. "With the radiation levels coming through the wormhole, and since the Stargate was located almost directly at ground zero, at a guess I would say that the blast radius probably exceeded forty miles. Assuming the planet is approximate to the size of Earth, the radiation would spread worldwide. The blast itself could disrupt planetary orbit, especially given the resultant chain reaction blasts that would occur if any more of the material was within the blast range. The atmosphere would likely be polluted beyond breathing from the expelled dirt and dust from the explosion, blocking whatever solar radiation the surface received. Accordingly, the temperature would plummet, quite possibly in a revival of the ice age. As a result -"

Somewhat horrified at the violently destructive picture she was painting, everyone at the table was surprised when Hammond cut in. "Major, could you summarize for us, please?"

Major Carter lifted her eyes to meet those of the base's commanding officer. "Sir, even if the people of this planet were immune to the effects of radiation, the resultant effects of the explosion would approximate the conditions laid down during the end-Permian period mass extinction of Earth, which was many times more extreme than the more well-known extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Triassic period. It would be . . . an Armageddon, sir."

Ferretti was white to the lips, his hands clenched on the table's edge. "It looks like we made it out just in time, then," he murmured. The rest of his team looked shaky, and surveying SG-2, Hammond apparently came to the same decision Teal'c did.

"SG-2, you're on stand down for the next week. Light duties only. Major Carter, would you attempt to connect to the Kelownans once more? We need to verify the situation if the Stargate is still intact."

Nodding once, Hammond moved to the control room, followed by SG-1. SG-2 left to receive their post-mission physicals and to hit the showers.

Ten minutes later, it was apparent that the SGC was utterly cut off from the people of Kelowna.

"Seventh chevron – will not lock."

Major Carter sighed. "That's the third time."

"Shut it down," the quiet command came from Hammond, who was still staring at the inactive Stargate. "I want those coordinates locked out of the dialing computer, as well."

Major Carter frowned. "We've seen Stargates in full working order during black holes, after being buried, shot at, hit by a meteor strike, while being bombarded by a particle accelerator -"

"Your point, Carter?" O'Neill asked tiredly.

"Sirs, if we encounter this element again, I think it might give us enough power to create a viable source for the defense shields that the labs have been working on."

Hammond raised a brow. "Very well. I'll add it to the missions objectives, and see that all the teams are informed." He paused for a moment, looking over SG-1 and seeing, for the first time, how beaten and tired the team appeared.

Drawing closer and lowering his voice, Hammond asked, "How is Dr. Jackson?"

O'Neill shook his head. "We don't know, sir."

Looking over each dispirited team member, Hammond nodded. "Alright. Dismissed."

As one, the members of SG-1 turned to the door and left, heading for the Infirmary and hopefully, news of Daniel.

"How is he?" O'Neill cornered Dr. Frasier almost as soon as they arrived in the Infirmary, just as she was finishing overseeing SG-2's post-mission physicals. The doctor turned with a sigh.

"To be frank, not well. He's in a coma."

"_What?_"

"The NID gave him an engineered glutamate isotope, as Daniel told you. It's different from the natural brain chemical in that while it is accepted by the neurons, it is resistant to naturally-produced depressants. In effect, Daniel's brain was continually stimulated, working at peak efficiency, for days. However, side effects of glutamate overdose include migraines and, in extreme cases, seizures. He's been abruptly cut off from the source, so while I'm not expecting any type of withdrawal -" the entire team released a collective breath "- I am expecting him to need quite a lot of rest. I believe that his brain, in an attempt to relieve exhaustion when the chemicals tapered off, simply shut down."

"And? So? Therefore? Well, what?"

Giving O'Neill a quelling look, Dr. Frasier slowly continued. "I don't believe this will last more than a few days, but I'm not sure. All we can do now, is wait."

(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(--(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(-(

Sorry for the excessive delay. Writer's block struck, big time, on this chapter, and I was distracted by fics in other fandoms. (cowers from glowering reviewers) To relieve your worry, let me assure you that I fully intend to finish this fic, and my self-imposed deadline is the start of August. I will follow this fic with the final in the series, the not-yet-fully-outlined but much-anticipated UCHITACHI.

As for the naquadriah thing, I've always wanted to blow Kelowna to hell (please pardon the language), especially at various moments during Season Sux. Um, Six. Season Six. Char-broiled Jonas, anyone? (evil smirk) Not so mysteriously impervious to radiation _now_, is he? Speed-reading. (incredulous snort). At this point, this fic becomes decidedly AU.


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N:** I apologize in advance for the general mutilation of biblical archaeology that's to follow, and for the fact that of some of the Biblical information set forth later has been altered simply by its use in the fandom. Thanks to MaureenT, who's been a great help to me in reworking the section in question. For more explicit information on what I have altered from history in this chapter, please email me and I would be happy to discuss it with you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was four days before Daniel opened his eyes; though to him, it didn't seem anywhere near as long. He found himself blinking up at the ceiling, absently wondering what he'd done to get landed in the Infirmary without his glasses _this_ time.

Turning his head, a surprising sight met his eyes. Someone – Jack from the slouch – was snoring gently in a chair that was tipped precariously back against the wall.

A clicking sound caught his attention, and he turned his head again, feeling unaccountably tired. It made no sense to him – he'd been sleeping for . . . how long had he been asleep?

"Welcome back," came Janet's soothing voice, and he squinted at her, shifting. He started to push himself up, and motion burst into action in the corner of his eye. He froze uncertainly.

"You're awake!" Jack's voice held a wealth of warmth, and was heavily flavored with relief that he couldn't hide.

"Yes," Daniel replied in tired confusion.

"He's awake?" Sam poked her head around the curtain, and Teal'c followed. Janet placed Daniel's glasses gently on his nose, in time for him to see the diminutive doctor roll her eyes in exasperation.

"Yes," she told them, her sternness unable to mask the twinkle of joy shining from her face.

Daniel settled carefully back, sitting upright for the first time. He rubbed his eyes, and flushed when he realized that not only were all of his teammates staring at him, but that he had been shaved, and hadn't done it himself. He was also much cleaner than he remembered being before he fell asleep. He shifted uncomfortably at the embarrassing realization, and cleared his throat. "How long?"

"Four days," Janet told him softly.

He blinked at her. "Wh – what?"

Jack smiled at the familiar, endearing look of vulnerability that Daniel wore. It was an expression only his friends ever got to see, and one they hadn't seen for much too long. Hair rumpled from sleep, the bloodshot eyes and pallor were gone, dark circles having disappeared during the course of the archaeologist's forced rest. Shocked, alert blue eyes were the happiest sight Jack had seen in days. "You were really out of it," Jack murmured, almost to himself.

"Indeed," Teal'c intoned grimly. It was clear from voice and expression that the Jaffa was still contemplating dismemberment of Daniel's kidnappers. Jack had already cheerfully resolved to shoot on sight, but he didn't want to spoil this moment with thoughts of the inevitable murder and mayhem to come. There would be enough time for that later.

"Ah."

Janet took a good look at them, as they sat in comfortable silence just drinking in Daniel's awake, and somewhat confused and wary, presence. "Out," she told them firmly.

Protesting with all their might, SG-1 nevertheless found themselves briskly escorted beyond the Infirmary boundaries as Dr. Frasier examined Daniel. Their reward, which came thirty minutes later, was a fully ambulatory archaeologist, a little shaky on his pins but walking nonetheless. Janet was following him, eyeing the hand he had placed on the wall for no real reason, certainly not for either steadiness or support.

"Food," was her next command to the Colonel, and Jack snapped a smiling salute, before obeying with alacrity.

Daniel, eager himself to calm the rumblings of a stomach too long left empty, willingly followed them to the commissary. It was mostly empty. At this time of evening, most people that weren't off-world or working on an especially trying project had gone home. It was restful, and much more relaxing for SG-1 to sit, conversing lightly and watching carefully as Daniel nearly inhaled his food.

When the archaeologist finally sat back, with a satiated sigh, he had demolished three platefuls of today's dinner special – turkey, stuffing, gravy, corn, mashed potatoes, salad, and two large slices of pie. Jack watched in amusement as Daniel blinked sleepily, remnants of his earlier unconsciousness transformed into the need for true, restful sleep.

Sam pushed a cup of coffee over to him, and to Jack's relief, Daniel's eyes lit up and he reached reverently for the mug. It was a far cry from the glazed look of refusal that had met such an offering on the plane so many days ago. Glancing to the other members of his team, Jack found them exchanging happy glances.

Revived and refreshed, Jack began herding his team in the direction of the briefing room. A debriefing was necessary, and he was not the only one who wanted to know what had happened to their archaeologist.

Hammond had been informed as soon as Daniel had awoken, and scheduled a debriefing as soon as reasonably possible afterward. Daniel himself was well accustomed to the SGC's military policy, and was unsurprised to find himself sitting once more in the briefing room.

After the general entered, the archaeologist explained in detail what had happened, from the moment the car had picked up an extra, gun-toting passenger, to when he had been drugged in the clearing. Beyond that, his memories were excruciatingly clear, down to the smallest detail, and he merely skimmed, knowing that every nuance of what he could recall would be typed up and handed to Hammond within the week. His mind on what he had discovered, Daniel was unaware of the impact of his dispassionate words on the others in the room.

He told them of what little he had learned of the NID operation in Ain Ghazel, but caution prompted him to be almost silent on what he had deciphered while in the hands of the NID. He more than anyone knew how the drugs he had been given affected him, but he doubted that the others would have any faith in his ability while under such unknown influences.

So it was with surprise that he answered Sam's innocent, "What did you actually find out, Daniel?" She held out to him the paper covered with an indecipherable mishmash of symbols, letters, lines and dots.

Daniel sat up, taking the paper carefully, and scanned it quickly before turning it right-side up. He groped for a pen, his attention on the crumpled yellow page, and Jack slipped one into his searching fingers. Daniel glanced up and shot the other a smile, and Jack couldn't help but smile back. The archaeologist's attention veered sharply back to the tattered scrap then, and he began to translate the hodgepodge of symbols with surprising rapidity.

The scrambled jumble of markings he produced, however, elicited no more understanding from his team than had the first paper. Daniel sat back, eyes sweeping the paper in satisfaction.

"Um, Daniel?" Sam asked carefully. "What does it say?"

"Oh. Here," he pushed the paper toward her.

Sam grinned a little. "Daniel, it's not in English," she pointed out gently.

Daniel frowned at the paper, and then flushed a little. "Oops. Sorry." Busy translating the Arabic into English, he missed the worried glance Sam gave Jack, and the questioning look on the General's face.

Finally finished, he peered at the paper and nodded, satisfied.

General Hammond picked it up.

"_In sight of the all-powerful, Lord all-seeing, Ba'al of the people. Ba'al. _

_Under the eyes of Ba'al, the eyes of the Lord who seeth all. _

_In his sight it is written. In his sight it shall be done. _

_Here sayeth the king unto his people._

_By our lord Ba'al I have been commanded. It is the word of Ba'al that thus it shall be done. _

_Ba'al came to me, and said: 'Go to the high places, on the fourth day of the month of Nisan. In the month of Nisan, on the fourth day, all the people shall travel to the high places. Here, in the high places where the name of the Lord dwells, you shall offer up your sons and daughters. Each firstborn of your sons and daughters will be offered up to Ba'al in the high places. And they shall pass through fire, as a mlk sacrifice, to Ba'al.' _

_Ba'al came to me and spoke thus. 'This shall be law among your people. That they offer their children to me in the high places shall become law. I will bless beyond the thousandth generation those who uphold my law. But those who deny me, who do not offer their sons and daughters to me on the high places, shall be cursed; to the third and fourth generation they shall be cursed. And to their king will fall the harshest punishment of all.'_

_Thus the rulers who come after me are bound._

_Should the law of Ba'al the all-seeing not be served by his people, you shall be cursed. Unto death and beyond he shall curse you; he shall curse you to be barren, to loose all your cattle and to dress in sackcloth. Like a mourner you shall be covered in ash, like the bereft, you will cut your skin and roll in the dust. Thus you shall be deprived of all, unto death and beyond. Thus shall Ba'al the all-seeing shall curse you, from his heavenly court. Thus, you shall be cursed."_

Stunned silence crowded thickly into the corners of the room.

"Dr. Jackson," General Hammond said. They were all still staring at the general, who had read the words aloud with growing confusion. "What is this?"

Daniel pursed his lips, hands folded on the table in front of him. "From what I can tell, it's a bastardization of an ancient Mesopotamian treaty-text. The invocation of the god comes first, though typically more than one god would be named as witness to the treaty. It's usually followed by a short history of the reasons for the treaty's existence, but that seems to be omitted here. It follows the rest of the format, however, quite concisely, with the main body of the text outlining the details of the treaty, followed by the standard threats of renumeration should the treaty be broken."

Despite the situation, Jack would have sword that he saw a mischievous light in the linguists' eyes, as he answered the question without telling them anything. None of them knew quite what to say next.

Daniel took pity on them. "Honestly, I don't know. It was written in what I could tell was an obscure, ancient dialect of Goa'uld. It seems to be a treaty between a Goa'uld and the king of his people, in which the Goa'uld holds off destruction of the people in return for being given their children."

"As what? As hosts? Slaves?" Jack demanded.

Daniel frowned. "It's difficult to say."

"What do you mean by that?"

Blue eyes flashed in irritation. "Jack, the question you've asked is something that Biblical archaeologists have been debating for the last hundred and fifty years! Here. 'mlk sacrifice' is what was written in the text. One translation of that is 'offered up as a sacrifice to Molech' – the Mesopotamian god of death. So, yes, coupled with 'passing through fire', human sacrifice is implied. But this is a Goa'uld we're talking about; that type of human sacrifice serves them nothing. It could mean that the children are being offered up by their parents as slaves to this Goa'uld instead."

Sam glanced between the two, raising a brow at Teal'c. The Jaffa stared evenly back, unperturbed. Perhaps they needed to have a little of this out, then.

Daniel leaned back, spreading his hands. "I really don't know. This type of theological debating is not my strongest suit."

"Theology?" Sam jumped on the word. Usually, with Goa'uld, the term was 'mythology'.

Daniel tensed a little. "Yes. It would be."

"And why is that?" Hammond asked, warily.

Daniel didn't look at any of them. "Ba'al is a general term used in the Middle East during the Bronze and Iron Ages. It generally just means 'lord', but it has heavier connections to the sources of modern-day religions than any of the other Goa'uld we've faced. Ra and Apophis are remnants of religious traditions that have for the most part, fallen out of use in our world. Ba'al . . . came from a region and time period that has given rise to the three major religions which dominate on our planet today. In this case, 'theology' is simply the closest and most correct term applicable."

Sam winced, hating herself for the question that she felt she now had to ask. "What are the odds that -"

Anticipating her words, Daniel shook his head vehemently. "Practically nonexistent. The time period is all wrong, fortunately. There's no overlap whatsoever between even the extreme outlying dates for the projected coinage of these terms and the period of Stargate activity on Earth."

Sam sighed. Daniel gave her a terse half-smile. "But that's only half of it."

"What?" Sam gaped, blue eyes wide.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"Daniel?" Jack pushed, gently, for something more.

The archaeologist shook his head. "That was the information on the first foot or so of the scroll I translated. There was more, at the bottom, which I thought might have been more important. General Hammond hasn't read it yet."

"Sir?" Jack asked, startled.

Hammond nodded. "Perhaps Dr. Jackson should read the rest."

Daniel took the yellow, lined paper and scanned down it until he reached the point where the general had halted.

"It's a scribe's note at the bottom," Daniel told them quietly. "The treaty isn't as important as what this implies. _'So told by the Sibyl of the Mount, in the sixth year of the rule of King Adrastos. _

'_When I encountered her, and asked her the truth of the tale, she was taken by the fury of the god. Her eyes flashed as bright bolts from Zeus; her voice was great and terrible as she cursed my lack of faith._

_'I cried that I knew nothing of the people to the south, across the vast sea, where the land is hot and strange. I cried for mercy from her terrible wrath, and begged for understanding._

_Then she told me of a journey I must make, bidding me to bury the words she had recounted, in a tongue terrible and strange to the ear. For the tale above was the reason for her flight, she said, though I understood it not. _

_But the oracle promised long life to me, and children aplenty, should I fulfill her task.'_

Jack snorted at that, and Daniel kicked him lightly under the table. Jack grinned. Daniel continued without pausing.

_'So I traveled to the land of the Phoenicians in the far south, across the great swells of ocean, past the land of Egypt. Many days and nights across the wasteland of water did I travel, and as more on food over a wasteland of sand, until I came to the place the Oracle told to me. There, I labored in the hot sun many days, entrusting my burden to the realm of Hades._

_'I returned, no longer so young a man as before I left, but the words of the Sibyl are true to me.'_

Daniel shoved his glasses up on his nose, staring at the document for a moment before putting it down once more. "The only thing that's given across the bottom is a Stargate address, along with a note that the Sibyl announced her intention to leave a few days after the scribe returned, and when he asked her of her destination, this was the answer she wrote in the sands."

"Dr. Jackson," Hammond entreated. "You must have an idea of the significance of all this."

"I do," Daniel admitted. He didn't look at any of them, his attention on the paper as he spoke. "You see, the treaty that's given is only a copy – a historical record incorporated into a much longer text, which was almost perfectly preserved. I can only assume that pieces of it were omitted, for the sake of brevity. It's almost impossible to date the paper according to the king's name that is given; records of rulers are patchy at best, given much of the unrest that occurred in Greece's early history."

He stopped fiddling with the paper, interlacing his fingers and stilling the motion of his hands on the desk – a sure sign that whatever he was about to propose stretched the bounds of believability. "The mixing of these cultures is somewhat misleading. There's evidence of a strong connection to the middle-eastern area of the Levant, in present day Israel, Pakistan, and Jordan, though the area itself is much larger than the borders of these countries. But the source itself is Greek, although it was apparently discovered in the Levant. I believe that whomever this Sibyl was -"

"A Goa'uld," Teal'c rumbled.

Daniel shook his head. "Whoever she was, took these notes with her when she left for the Stargate in Egypt, concealing them somewhere near the Dead Sea. But I believe she might have been a Tok'Ra."

"Tok'Ra?" Jack asked, a medley of emotions fighting for domination of his expression. Their alliance with the 'good' snakes was a two-edged sword more liable to draw their blood than that of their allies. The Tok'Ra were notoriously practiced at getting help while avoiding giving it.

Daniel nodded. "A spy, fleeing from Ba'al with information about his battle strategies."

"But Daniel," Sam interjected. "These documents are thousands of years old. Whatever Ba'al's strategy was must have been implemented or changed since then. This information must be incredibly outdated."

Daniel shrugged. "It may very well be. Two things make me think otherwise, however. The first is that the lifespan of a Goa'uld is generally much longer than ours, unless they have the good fortune to meet us."

Jack smirked smugly, and Sam grinned. A low mumble, that might have been the words, '_Dead_ false gods', could be heard from Teal'c's general direction.

"Long-term battle contingencies are unlikely to change; unless eliminated by another source or nullified, opposing powers remain an obstacle to be destroyed. And long-term for a Goa'uld stretches for thousands of years. The information might have changed significantly in that time, but other information, such as supply routes or sanctuary planets, would not have changed. Even if we can't use the information, it might be useful to the Jaffa, or at the very least give us a bargaining chip with the Tok'Ra."

"God knows we need that," Hammond muttered, but so lowly that it was clear he didn't intend anyone to overhear him. Daniel politely ignored the words.

"What's the second reason?" Jack asked him quietly.

Daniel hesitated a moment before blurting, "The NID. They seemed very certain that this information would be useful, even after I pointed out the problem of incongruence within the dating. Lt. Sanders was convinced that the information would be useful. _Very_ convinced," Daniel murmured.

"Sir," Sam jumped in suddenly. "What are the odds that during the time when the NID had unlimited access to the second Stargate, they were able to forge an alternate alliance with the Tok'Ra?"

Hammond started, then his eyes grew hard. "Given the amount of time that went into our own Earth-Tok'Ra alliance, slim. But not impossible."

"The last time he was here, Dad mentioned that there was concern on the High Council about rogue elements within the Tok'Ra," Sam recalled. That had been weeks ago.

"It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots," Jack snarled.

"No, but the evidence is circumstantial and guesswork at best," Daniel cautioned reasonably.

They fell silent in the face of that truth. Hammond sighed, looking around the table at his premier team. Exhaustion laid claim to every face, though they all looked better than they had in weeks. He shook his head.

"Alright," Hammond ordered softly. "I don't think we can do any more about this tonight. Get some sleep; I want to see you all here at 0930 tomorrow morning."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(gulps) Has it really been six months since I updated? (dodges rotten food, and a few random tools). I am really sorry about that. To be upfront and honest, I had planned this story to go in a direction that, quite literally, filled me with dread when I considered actually writing it. Nothing gives a good case of writer's block like knowing you've got to research and being reluctant to do it. After a serious look at the drawing board, I've returned to my original plan for this story. I'm crappy when it comes to trying to write riddles and be subtle anyway . . . .

With luck, now that I'm on break, I'll have a chance to work on this beast. Once again, my sincere apologies for the delay, and a great big THANK YOU to everyone who stuck with me, especially those who gave me a little kick to get me going again.


	15. Chapter 14

"Daniel! Wait up!"

The archaeologist swung around in surprise, to see Jack trotting up behind him.

He had passed the night peacefully in an on-base VIP room. The next morning's briefing had been anything but, and he had handed in his written report of the kidnapping. Being an early riser had its benefits; he hadn't had to go through the entire story again. But they had ultimately stonewalled on what to do, how to find out if the Tok'Ra were once again jerking them around and playing two sides of the fence. They didn't even have enough information to go after the NID in Jordan, as it was almost certain that the base had been shut down and relocated on Daniel's escape and subsequent reappearance in Colorado Springs.

Hammond had finally dismissed them, and Daniel was hungry. Even so, he was more eager to check on his department of archaeologists. Curiosity had ever been his abiding fault, he gave a mental shrug. Especially intriguing was the much-bemoaned panel which had become the bane of the SGC, civilian and military alike. Though Hammond agreed that they were almost more trouble than they were worth, he wanted Daniel's opinion on their expertise. He wasn't about to fire them without adequate replacement. In his own words, the General thought it was about time that Dr. Jackson had some competent assistance.

Still bemused by the entire episode, Daniel shook his head as Jack came to a halt at his side. "Whatcha doing?"

"Standing in a hallway, Jack," Daniel grinned.

"You know what I mean," the other groused, sighing in a very put-upon manner.

So easy to fall back into the banter, into the way things used to be. Daniel was faintly surprised by that. "Actually, I was just going to find out who Hammond had hired to take my place," he explained.

Jack looked up, catching his eye. The seriousness of his expression pulled Daniel up short. "Jack?"

"Daniel, you know that no one could ever take your place," Jack told him somberly.

Taken aback, Daniel could only stare warily at the other man. "No one is irreplaceable, Jack," he responded after a pregnant pause.

"Not true."

Faced with such firm denial, Daniel didn't really know what to say. They continued down the hall in a slightly uncomfortable silence. "Hungry?" he finally offered.

A quick nod and grin dispelled the awkwardness as if it had never been. The two made their way to the commissary, intercepted on the way in by Teal'c. Once inside, Daniel spotted Sam sitting, nursing a mug of coffee, and they descended upon her table in a horde.

"Daniel!"

"And what are we, Carter? Chopped meat?" Jack inquired with exaggerated politeness, indicating himself and Teal'c.

"I'm sorry, Sir. Did you say something?"

Daniel hid a snicker, and Jack shook his head at the mischievous amusement shining in two pairs of blue eyes. "Underappreciated, Teal'c – that's what we are."

"On the contrary," Teal'c demurred. "I believe it is only to yourself that Major Carter and Daniel Jackson are _not_ referring."

Sam sputtered into her coffee cup, and Daniel made a noise that might have been a cough. Or not.

Jack's brows shot up. So much for brother warriors who would stand unflinchingly together in the face of all enemies. "Laugh it up, big guy," he muttered. "You have a meeting with a beating, coming right up."

"Undomesticated equines could not remove me," Teal'c returned smugly, hearing the subvocal jibe.

Jack grimaced into his plate of mystery meat; now he would be the one who would be limping to Janet and begging for painkillers. Jack had nothing but faith in his own skills as a soldier; the problem was, he had much more faith in Teal'c's. "Daniel, referee?" he pleaded. "If I need someone to hold me back . . ." he implied, silently urging the archaeologist to agree.

Daniel raised a brow, conveying his disbelief that Jack would need to be restrained; it was clear he thought it would be the other way around. "Sure," he said easily. "Can the two of you hold off on your demonstration until after 0230?"

Eager for any excuse to delay the inevitable, Jack answered casually, "No problem."

"What's happening at 2:30?" Sam asked, emerging from her coffee cup to wipe the liquid off her lip.

"Janet wants to check me over again. Make sure there's no lasting side effects, she said."

"Oh," Sam nodded.

"Hey, Carter. You missed some," Jack jumped in, unwilling to let the ugliness of the past few weeks intrude on their peace.

"I can't imagine how that got there," Carter said calmly, demurely wiping several drops of coffee off her nose.

"Indeed."

Jack snorted.

After an hour of not-so-quiet conversation, Daniel had to leave for the infirmary. He couldn't shake Jack, however, who insisted on accompanying him in order to make sure that Teal'c couldn't bribe or intimidate the referee. Daniel was grateful for his presence, and for the easy fabrication that slipped from his lips.

The checkup was just that – and it went quickly.

"Well, we have the results of your tests back," Janet smiled at him, looking up from his chart. "Everything looks to be back to normal."

Daniel nodded, reaching for his clothes. "Good."

"I'm releasing you fully cleared for active duty," Janet told him as he dressed. "You'll come to me if you feel any dizziness, nausea, or any of the symptoms you experienced under the influence of the NID's drug?"

Daniel nodded, his intentions quite the reverse.

"Daniel?"

He looked over, to see concerned brown eyes fixed on him. "You promise me that you'll come straight here, if you experience a relapse in symptoms?"

Daniel smiled weakly, and nodded. "I promise." Caught, and held now by his own word. But Janet was a friend, as well as his doctor, and she cared. He couldn't throw that away, despite his own misgivings.

"There is one more thing," Janet added softly. Daniel peered quizzically at her. She smiled, but it was a strained expression. "Wait here a moment."

Fully dressed, Daniel finished tying his boots and was pulling on his jacket when Janet returned. His eyes locked on the object in her hands, and his motions stilled.

"You left this here," Janet told him quietly.

Resting on her outstretched palms was Senichi's katana. Sheathed, the live steel was no less deadly, simply more innocuous.

Janet was waiting.

Daniel finished pulling on his jacket, telling himself that he needed to take the weapon from her, that Janet shouldn't have had to care for this burden of his for so long. But he couldn't make himself touch it. Not yet. He needed a moment, just one minute –

"Daniel? Are you alright?"

Concern, now, and worry that he didn't want to face. Forcing a smile to his lips, Daniel threw aside his fear and picked the weapon carefully up by the hilt. He couldn't meet her eyes. "I'm fine," he replied absently, studying the weapon.

His focus on the steel, he didn't see the wariness in Janet's eyes at his statement.

Gripping the sheath in one hand, and the hilt in the other, Daniel pulled, exposing two inches of blade. "It's clean," he observed with surprise.

Janet winced. "Not properly," she admitted.

Daniel looked to her, brows raised. "You cleaned it?"

The doctor shook her head. "I didn't know how to do it properly. I just wiped it off, first with damp towels, then with dry, and finally with a little oil to keep it from rusting. I tried to clean out the sheath, too, but I don't think it's been done properly."

"Thank you," Daniel said softly.

Janet gave a short, nervous laugh. "It'll be rusted through," she proclaimed.

"You tried."

Janet smiled at that, seeing her own strain echoed back in pained blue eyes. "You're welcome," she said at last.

Jack's eyes widened when Daniel exited the infirmary, still thoughtfully considering the weapon in his hands. He fell into step beside the archaeologist, who didn't register his presence.

"Where did that come from?"

Daniel started at the words, head jerking toward Jack. The colonel eyed the white-knuckled grip the archaeologist had on the katana's hilt, and lowered his voice. "Danny?" The expression that greeted him was somewhere between pain and laughter, an awful caricature of a smile that he hoped never to see again.

"It's from the mission to P5Y-362."

Jack didn't need to ask which mission that was – at times it seemed as if the designation for that thrice-cursed planet was burned into his brain. "Ah," he said, trying to think of something more to give the other man.

"Janet kept it."

Jack couldn't quite place the expression in the archaeologist's voice. "Well, it is a genuine samurai sword," he offered.

Daniel's face hardened. "I would have tossed it into the event horizon." Strangled, bitter words. He meant every one of them.

"Daniel?" Jack was taken aback by the venom in his voice.

Daniel shook his head, a strange little smile quirking his lips. "Never mind," he murmured. They were headed toward his office; with any luck, he'd be able to put the thing down out of sight. He could forget about it until he was more ready to face the memories that welled up like a vicious spring each time his skin touched the corded hilt that fit so easily into his palm.

He had loved the blade-work, before. The history had spoken to him, and the natural art in its use had called to him; he had been unable to deny the pull. But that had been before deadly steel had proven its nature inherent. The beauty was lost to him now, and he abhorred that violence in himself. It was just a piece of steel, but it embodied a convoluted pain, dark and deep. The pain of innocence lost and betrayal of self, and the pain of the nightmare that had been his life in that one revealing moment of murder, all weighed down by the life he had taken. He felt his soul as black as the sheath he clasped so desperately.

"You know," he managed, searching desperately for a way out of his thoughts. "Sensei told me that one should never draw live steel unless you were prepared to kill with it."

The colonel started at the words. "Daniel?"

The archaeologist shrugged. "I wasn't ready," he whispered.

Jack flinched. "I know," he said quietly. And he wanted to know how – _why_ – Daniel had been so familiar with the weight and heft of a steel-bladed katana before he set foot on that reed-woven mat, to fight for all their lives.

"I had killed before. I didn't want the blade," Daniel murmured, distressed.

Jack, not knowing the situation but knowing how to teach, responded, "Anything else wouldn't be respect, Daniel."

"Wh – what?"

Blue eyes struggling past tears met his, and Jack hurt for him. "Once you've been in battle," he said quietly, "you're changed. And it shows. Not so anyone who wouldn't understand would see it, but . . . . It would be an insult to you, to work only with practice weapons if you have the skill for more. Your instructor knew that."

Daniel shook his head. "I don't."

Jack reflected quietly that with Daniel, nothing was halfway. The man was difficult, in every way. Stubborn, hellacious, dedicated and damn-determined, loyal to a fault and the best man Jack knew. But it meant that now, trying to rebuild on both sides, there was a step back for every two forward.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

But it was times like this that made it hardest on his friend.

"Forgiving and forgetting," Daniel mused gravely, "are two vastly different things. And one is much easier than the other."

Jack winced, decided not to ask; he already knew.

They were at the door to Daniel's office; he paused in the entrance, as he had upon his first return from Israel. Still surprised, Jack could see, that they hadn't cleared it out and moved someone else in. This space had been uniquely _Daniel_ since the beginning of the Stargate program; with the archaeologists' resignation, none of them had been willing to admit that he wouldn't return, as he had so many times. Even if they had moved past that point into acceptance, there would have been no way Jack would allow anyone to erase the last vestiges of comfort he might find in the piece of his friend that remained, embodied, in this space.

Daniel shook his head, and sneezed. Jack grinned. "Could've probably done with a dusting," he freely admitted. "But no way in hell was anyone but SG-1 getting in here while you were gone."

Amazement was blinked back, but blue eyes still stared, nonplussed. Jack smiled gently, and Daniel pulled his gaze away.

The archaeologist moved over to the table. For a moment he looked as if he would like nothing more than to drop the sword on the ground and kick it out of sight. But that wasn't his way; Daniel had always grabbed his fears head on. He set the sword on the table, laying it almost reverently over the books strewn across the surface.

Then he seemed to shut it from his mind, if only for a moment. Daniel turned slowly, taking in the entire office, literally seeing for himself that nothing had changed, and nothing had been moved.

But the sword was coloring everything. It worried Jack. He knew that Daniel needed to overcome his distaste for the weapon – but he was damned if he knew how.

Familiarity, he decided. And familiarity came through use.

"Daniel? It's almost 0330," he called.

Absorbed in a text he had plucked from the shelf, Daniel only nodded abstractedly. "Hmmm."

"You're coming with me to referee, remember?" Jack patiently prodded Daniel's memory.

The archaeologist nodded again, making a noncommittal noise, and Jack bit down on a grin. Gripping the other man's elbow gently, Jack led him from the room. Daniel was so distracted that he didn't notice Jack grab the katana from its place on the table, concealing it by his other side as they walked down the hallway.

He managed to maneuver both archaeologist and sword, each oblivious to the presence of the other, through the halls of the SGC and even through a short elevator ride. They reached the gym without incident, surprisingly.

It was there that the problems started.

Daniel pulled his nose from the book as Jack plunked him down on a bench on the side. It was then that he saw the sword in the colonel's other hand. He grew still. "Jack?"

Jack saw the questioning eyes, the pain, and hid a wince. "Daniel."

"Jack."

"Daniel?"

"_Jack_."

He ignored the warning. "Daniel." He groped for words for a moment. "Just think about it, okay?"

Daniel shook his head, immediately. There were too many people here; he couldn't expose himself to so many curious eyes. He would never be ready for that.

"They'll clear out in a bit." Jack read him easily.

Daniel watched as Jack moved out onto the mat. Teal'c had been there before they entered, having exercised and warmed up already. A few more men came over as Daniel watched Jack stretch out, joking and placing bets. Daniel smiled, and joined in the banter, but the sword was an ever-present fire in his thoughts.

He didn't really see the fight before him, only vaguely registering the slaps of flesh against the mat, signs of sweat and exertion. The cheers of the men around him brought his attention to the mock battle – Teal'c had pinned Jack. But only for a moment, before Jack's leg swept out from under, and he torqued his body, slipping through the Jaffa's grasp. Daniel's thoughts slid away again.

He was drawn back twice more; Jack had grabbed Teal'c in a headlock, but the Jaffa's enhanced strength meant he couldn't hold it for long. Both men were sweating heavily now, and showed signs of fatigue; but neither would stop.

It ended when Teal'c, in a surprisingly sneaky move, cut Jack's legs out from under him and pushed him to the mat in a hold that no amount of squirming could break. Jack finally slapped the mat in frustration, and the Jaffa released him, hauling the colonel to his feet with an outstretched hand.

Money changed possession around Daniel. Jack jerked his chin at the exchange. "Dannyboy – what were the odds?" He was carefully stretching the muscles in his arms, working on cooling down.

Daniel smirked. "Five to two. Against."

Jack grumbled something uncomplimentary, disgruntled. Teal'c also moved closer to the archaeologist. The Jaffa's dark eyes were focused on something next to his friend, however.

"Daniel Jackson. You carry a blade?"

Daniel jumped, his face going a shade whiter, but his expression didn't change. "No, Teal'c. Jack thought I should get used to having it around again."

Jack winced. Daniel had a mind like a steel trap – and he saw them more clearly than they could see themselves. Having his own motivations laid bare by the target of those impulses did not bode well for his future. Apparently, Daniel was refusing to let him get away with anything that he had before the disastrous mission that had torn them apart.

"Do you fear it?" Teal'c was unaccustomedly gentle, questioning the younger man no more harshly than he would Ry'ac.

"I don't fear the blade," Danielmurmured, painfully honest. "I fear myself."

True to form, however, the archaeologist did not back down. Fingers curled easily over the hilt, and with a strange metallic sound unlike anything Jack had ever heard, he bared the blade.

Practiced eyes inspected the steel, clouded with professional care for the weapon, and something darker.

"Danny?"

The archaeologist hesitated, then shook his head. Metal made a hissing noise as it was resheathed. "No. Not yet."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas! To all my readers, I hope this holiday season brings you joy!


	16. Chapter 15

The sun was glaring hotly down on them. Despite the dubious protection of hats and sunblock, skin was flushed and glistening from the heat.

Nonetheless, cheerful voices rang out across the Essene site; though the work had passed tedious over a week ago, the mood on the dig was upbeat and optimistic.

"We . . . dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-mine the whole night through!"

"We dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig-dig is what we like to do!" Tobe bellowed gleefully.

"It's no big trick -"

"To get rich quick -"

A snicker split the musical harmony, disrupting the beat. Michelle glared at Saloma.

"When you dig-dig-dig with a shovel or a stick," Katie continued with a smile, hefting her trowel in an explanatory gesture that managed to look threatening.

"In a mine . . ."

"In a mine!"

"Where a zillion diamonds -"

"Ziv!"

"What?"

Michelle glared at him.

"You know," Mac observed, staring at the unit from which the surprisingly harmonious raucous was emanating, "they don't sound half bad."

Galya's flaming head tilted, as she lifted her gaze from the clipboard to the expanded unit in which her graduate students were dutifully wielding trowel and brush. "If Saloma could stop laughing at the lyrics long enough to sing them."

Mac snorted. "And if Ziv stopped changing his voice part every three measures."

Galya raised an interested brow. "Is _that_ what he was doing?"

A grin carved through the wrinkles under Mac's Mexican sombrero. His niece had sent him the massive hat only a few days ago for his birthday, and it completely obscured his wild head of hair. "Couldn't you tell?"

Galya shrugged unashamedly. "I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Haven't you figured that out by now?"

Mac squinted out toward the unit, his suspicions roused at the lack of noise. "I know the students were convinced that there was a cat lurking about the tents, somewhere. It took me a good half-hour's argument to keep them from searching for it. Jo insisted that any animal making noises like that had to be in pain."

Age hadn't slowed the overseer of the dig; he managed to dodge the clipboard that swung through the air with frightening velocity.

"Schmuck," Galya pronounced with alacrity.

"Hey! I resemble that remark!" Louie cried, coming up on them from behind.

Mac grinned, about to respond, when noise from the unit caught his attention. Turning, he raised a brow and sighed. The wind brought a few words to them, allowing the older Professor to divine the nature of the problem.

"I must depart," he mournfully told Galya. "The children are fighting again."

She hid a grin behind her clipboard, ushering him off with an imperious wave. The source of the problem seemed to be a heated debate involving airborne trowels and, unfortunately, a Munsell book that was being emphatically brandished.

" – telling you," Tobe insisted as Mac drew close to the three-foot hole in the ground. "10 YR, ¾! It's yellowish brown!"

"I disagree," said Saloma, haughtily. "I think that you would be better served to look on page 7.5 YR. It's clearly a dusty yellow."

"You're both wrong," Michelle snorted. "It's -"

"What's the scorpion in your sleeping bag?" Mac inquired genially. He was rewarded for his silent approach with a jerk of surprise from Saloma, a gasp from Tobe, and a little shriek from Michelle. He was also unused to being ignored.

"Mac!" Tobe exclaimed, the thrill of discovery shining in his eyes. "We found a hole!"

The professor became serious immediately. "Move," he ordered, and they shuffled to the far side of the unit as he dropped in beside them. Studying the ground, he could see a clear difference in the colors of the soil. A dark, circular patch was bordered by the paler soil characteristic of the unit's second level.

"We'd just left the topsoil and the first level," Michelle explained. "When we were leveling out the bottom of the unit, we realized that we were in level two. Barely three centimeters down, we found distinctive marks of either a pit or posthole."

Mac nodded, agreeing with the girl's assessment; she had been well taught and missed nothing. He glanced around, making his own assessment, then crouched in the dirt, pinching a bit of the soil and rubbing it through his fingers. It had the same sandy, grainy texture that they had found in the second and first layers, which was typical of the region. There was a clear color difference that distinguished the circular patch from the surrounding dirt, however.

"A pit," he commented, keen eyes taking in the rest of the unit. "Have you found any artifacts in this layer?"

Saloma shook her dark head, voice clear and precise. "None in level two. Level one was sterile as well."

Mac pursed his lips, then blew a raspberry. "Refuse," he determined. "Or, if you're exceptionally lucky, a latrine."

Michelle's eyes grew wide with excitement. Saloma started searching frantically for her trowel, which had been lost during a particularly vehement stage in the argument. Tobe whispered happily, "Wait 'till I tell Katie!"

Mac turned away to hide his grin. These ones had the makings of true archaeologists, and a little bit of the crazy that he and Galya hoarded so preciously, as well.

"I still say it's 10 YR - " Tobe began, crouching at the wall of the unit.

"And I still say you've spent a little too much time in the sun," Saloma interrupted. "It's clearly -"

"You're both wrong," Michelle informed the two next to her.

Mac listened to the argument with one ear as he returned to the tent where Galya was filling out her charts. Louie was cooing over a few of the nicer artifacts that had been turned up and Ziv was out, making sketches of several of the features they had uncovered.

"Galya," Mac called absently, clearing his throat of the dust. "What unit did you assign Tobe, Michelle and Saloma to today?"

She reached over, and flipped through her chart. "Unit 16, out of shovel test 245. Why?"

"They've found a feature, and I think we need a few photos before they get completely in gear."

Taking his cue, Louie snatched his camera on the way out of the tent, description board appropriately lettered and slung under his arm, compass hanging from a bit of twine about his neck.

"And, Galya?"

"Hmm?"

"Whatever possessed you to put the three of them on that unit at once?"

The fiery-haired professor broke into a wicked grin. "Well, I wanted to see if they could work together. And the unit _is_ a yard per side."

Mac shook his head, turning back to his table. On it were many of the details that he coordinated as site director. Among them budget information and updates from both the camp and the Hebrew University, status reports from field and lab, and the latest test results of soil samples they had sent to a German laboratory, from breaking ground two months ago. Floral and faunal examinations were costly in addition to being time-expensive; he was amazed that they had gotten the results so quickly.

On the heels of a discovery that was brewing in the sun outside, however, he had no urge to deal with paperwork. Instead, he turned his attention to the tiny packet of letters he had received the previous day, but hadn't had the chance to open yet.

"Bill," he sorted through the pile. "Bill. Bill. Junk mail – heh, even in the middle of nowhere, the sales marketers still manage to find you – bill, letter from home, bill. Letter from the university, demanding another update, I presume. Reminder from Smitty that he needs to make another food run – how did he slip that into my mail? Eh. Letter from . . . Colorado Springs?"

"Who do you know in Colorado Springs?" Galya called over, clearly distracted and just as clearly not wanting to do anything about it.

"Beats me," Mac muttered, sifting through papers for his letter opener.

"No, but I will if you don't hurry it up," Galya told him, over his shoulder.

Mac froze, eyeing her warily. "How did you get _here_ . . . from all the way over _there_, without me noticing?"

The smug look that Galya trained on him didn't make him feel any better. "Mystic female powers."

Pushing his luck, Mac opened his mouth. "What exactly -"

Galya reached over, snatched the letter from his slackened grasp, and proceeded to sashay back to her chair.

"Hey!"

Tilting her head saucily, Galya gave him a _look_. "Were you going to open it?" she asked, ripping savagely through the envelope. The return address was only barely salvaged from the relentless attack. Pulling out three hand written sheets, she glanced at the handwriting, and then searched for the signature. When she found it, she let out a loud whoop.

"What? What is it?" Mac demanded, standing and making a grab for the letter. "That is _mine_, you know!"

Instead of answering, Galya dodged around the shorter, solid Scot and made for the tent-flap, shouting, "Five-minute break! Hey everyone! Guess what I've got!" Then she let out a piercing whistle, waving the papers through the air.

Mac glared at her, hands over his ears. It would be a cold day in hell before he jumped to grab the letter from her hands. That didn't stop him from wanting to, however.

"Galya," he growled. "_Galya!_"

Normally, she would have balked at the warning, becoming serious instantly. This time, however, she just smiled at him. "It's the desert bug, Mac," she told him, handing the letter over. The grad students piled around stared blankly, before Mac sputtered in surprise, "Daniel?"

The hubbub that rose lasted moments, and was only quelled when Tobe shouted, "Well? What's he say?"

Mac waved them all down and away. "Back up, ye heathens! Give me some room, here!"

At the outcry, the archaeologists adjourned to the tent, out of the sun. Tobe and Ziv, the first in, grabbed the two extra chairs. Katie wound up on Tobe's lap, Mac and Galya at their claimed areas. Michelle, Saloma, and Louie were chairless; while Louie leant against a table, Michelle and Saloma seemed to give up, and plopped down on the dirt.

Mac cleared his throat, reading the intent expressions of the colleagues and students around him, and began.

"'_Dear Mac (though I assume that by the time you start this letter, everyone will have found out that I've written you, and refused to let you continue until the congregation has settled itself),'"_

Laughter interrupted the site director, and he smiled and waited for the last sounds of mirth to die down before continuing.

"'_I'm back at Colorado Springs, and finally settled in. I'm waiting for an apartment lease to clear, but until then I stay at Jack's house the nights I'm not on base. I have my job as a consultant once more, though I'm not on a field unit just yet. I've decided to wait on that for a bit; or at least, to join another unit for awhile and get my feet back under me. _

_'How's the Essene site coming? I've enclose some information that might be relevant from my copy of Fausted . . .'"_

Here Mac broke off, sorting through the next page and a half, which contained cited, technical information. "The boy knows how much I hate library work," he murmured, appreciative of the thought and time Daniel had spent on him.

Galya snorted. "What else is archaeology, you stubborn Scot? Oy," she lamented.

Mac ignored her, continuing. "_'The weather here's pretty good; nothing like the scorching heat to make you appreciate the rain. Jack's been happily grouching about it for days now. But after the desert, Colorado's a bit too cool for me._

_'Speaking of which. Galya –"_

Mac broke off, and the woman in questioned looked pleased, buffing her nails against her shirt before blowing nonchalantly across the tips. "Well?"

Mac smirked. "_'The coffee at Colorado Springs is much better than anything you managed, caffeinated or not.'_"

"Hey!"

Laughter, once more, at the convivial tone of the missive. "The three-thousand mile smackdown," Ziv whispered, entranced. "Oh, a thing of beauty!"

"Keep it up," Galya suggested sweetly. "I've got to make up the chore roster for latrine duty for the next month. Want to be it?"

The blonde ex-surfer bum's mouth snapped shut.

"_'But I just wanted to ask you what vengeance you wreaked on those poor unfortunate souls I impressed into service. I hope it wasn't anything too awful; they were mostly innocent, you know.'"_

"Mostly!" Galya snarled.

Mac grinned, continuing without pause. "_'Louie, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a rain check on the perfumery argument until my next letter; Mac, same goes for the import of Essene ritual. Ziv, I was wondering how the fiddling's coming? I added a sheet or two of some really exotic African music for you, Saloma and Michelle. I'm planning on coming for a visit, anytime you're short on labor, and wouldn't mind hearing what you make of it.'"_

"Daniel's coming for a visit?" Louie asked, excitedly.

"_'It won't be for at least a month or so, but apparently I have a lot of accrued leave, and the stuff just keeps rolling over. I was a little suspicious when the General told me that, since I thought that with my resignation it would have been negated –'"_

"General?" Katie asked with interest.

"Leave?" Tobe inquired at the same time. The two smiled at each other, and leaned in close, while Saloma made a gagging motion and Michelle rolled her eyes.

"Get a tent," Ziv suggested slyly.

Katie aimed a kick in his general direction.

"_' – but apparently not. I've got to go, Sam's dragging me to the commissary to get something to eat. It's only two (yes, in the afternoon, Galya, stay calm) –'_"

"What?" the woman in question protested, receiving and correctly interpreting the several looks leveled her way from various parts of the tent. "I caught him finishing up paperwork at four in the morning once! He hadn't slept!"

"What were _you_ doing up?" Mac queried interestedly.

"She was helping him," Michelle accused, grinning widely.

"That's _none_ of your business." Galya radiated offended hauteur.

"She was helping him," Saloma confirmed, sharing a knowing smile with Ziv. The blonde ex-surfer grinned, no longer sulking at the thought of a month cleaning the Port-A-Privies, and showed off a pierced tongue in the direction of the redheaded Latin professor.

"Eeeeww!" Michelle squealed. "When did you get _that_ done?"

A few moments of silent, morbid fascination passed while the archaeologists stared at Ziv's tongue with varying degrees of horror, respect, and disgust.

"Anyway," Mac cleared his throat after a minute, pulling his eyes from the unexpected sight. "_'Murray wishes to send you all his deepest thanks for, as Jack has it, 'pulling my butt out of the fire' a week or more ago. Sam (Major Carter) says thanks as well, and Jack would like to cordially inform you that, for grave-digging geeks, you're not that bad. Um, I paraphrased – sort of.'_"

A disgusted snort rounded the room, but Galya laughed heartily. "The boy's got spitfire," she declared approvingly. The rest of the academics, dirt smeared and bedraggled as they were, looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"_' Sincerely, _

_Daniel._

_P.S. If you have trouble with anyone sneaking around the dig, call me. I've enclosed my cell phone number, if Galya hasn't completely destroyed the envelope – it's in there.'_"

"Well, it sure is good to hear from the desert bug again," Louie commented, pushing away from the table and rolling his shoulders contentedly.

"Wait, wait! There's another postscript," Saloma called, having hoisted to her feet and snagged the letter before Mac could stop her. She snickered, and gave Mac a look that screamed blackmail.

"What?" Katie called, unaware of the flush that was creeping up Mac's neck at the sudden attention. He looked distinctly hunted.

"_'P.P.S. – Mac, Janet still wants to hear the end of that bagpipe story, and she's convinced that the haggis probably had something to do with it . . . what, exactly, is she talking about? _

_ Daniel.'_"

"Bagpipes?" Galya inquired gently, a speculative gleam in her eye.

"Haggis?" Michelle asked, just as innocently.

"Ye're closing in on me like piranhas readying for the kill," Mac commented, unsuccessfully trying to stifle his nervousness.

"Mac?" Ziv probed, hungry for the details.

"I may have made a few unwise choices in my youth in regards to bagpipes, kilts and haggis," Mac declared with hard-won aplomb. "But I am still the head honcho of this site, and daylight's a-wastin'! Back to the grindstone!"

There were only a few loud groans at the thought of toiling once more in the hot sun, but the students trooped back out into the heat to continue opening their unit. Galya was the last one, following them out. She paused in the doorway, looking back at Mac, who had tossed the letter in resignation onto his desk.

"Mac?"

Scrubbing a hand through his wild white mane, the director looked back at her. "Yes?"

"Kilts?"

Mac looked at the postscript, and back at the professor, and swore.

Galya let the tent flap drop in her wake, the notes of a cheery tune whistled off-key with no rhythm drifting back to her supervisor.

"I'm a dead man," Mac groaned, slumping to his chair. "It's only a matter of time . . . ah well."

Resigned to the inevitable, he tackled the nightmare known commonly as "that horrid place, don't make me go in there, please!", which he called his desk. It took only four hours, across lunch break, to look over the lab results, respond to the demands of both the Hebrew University and the Israeli government, and to sort and catalogue the sheets filled out by the students for each unit in the original Roman-Byzantine site for the last three days. He had just finished, and was staring unenthusiastically at the chaotic half of the desk which had been devoted to the Essene site, when a shocked shout reached his ears. Eager for the distraction, Mac gained his feet and stretched, popping a few vertebrae in his spine with a pained grunt.

He ambled over to the tent flap. And was bowled over by a tall, dusty figure that sped in at a speed of at least sixty-five kilometers an hour. "Mac! Mac?"

"Down . . . here," he wheezed.

"God, Mac, I'm sorry," Tobe apologized fervently, helping the older man to his feet. "It's the pit, in Unit 16 – we've found something, and Saloma threatened to kill us all if anyone touched it before you got there."

"In that case," Mac grinned, sparing not another glance to his desk, spilling over with leftover paperwork. "Lead the way."

The outside lights were on, buzzing with a hum of electricity and accumulated insect life. Mac followed them to the unit, taking a moment to inspect the straightness of the walls and the quality of the sifting work that was being done, off to the far side. Louie was already there, meter-stick, compass, noteboard and camera at the ready. Ziv crouched down, well away from the unit wall, a sketchpad balanced across his knees. Saloma was reading off depth measurements to Michelle, who was dutifully cataloguing and peering at her Munsell book.

Mac looked in amusement at the amount of people who had gathered around the unit, tempted to shout for them all to go back to work. Looking at his watch, however, he knew that this would probably be the day's last hurrah, so he cut them some slack, and simply shouted for everyone to move back, instead.

He lowered himself three feet down into the unit, walking carefully forward until he reached the point of interest. It was almost fully excavated, a squarish object wrapped in cloth. Mac squatted next to it, carefully tugging at the cloth, to reveal a creamy corner with black scrawled across it.

His breath caught.

"What is it?" Tobe asked, peering over his shoulder, entranced.

"It's a text."


	17. Chapter 16

Daniel sat back in his chair, rubbing his neck tiredly. He smiled. It had taken most of three days to finally decipher the alien text on a carved box bought back to the SGC by SG-5, but it had been worth it. When finally translated, the text had yielded valuable clues about the people who had once lived there, revealing the object to be a puzzle-box whose riddles were concerned with matters of life and death.

Nothing of technological importance, but still. The descendants of these people still lived near the 'Gate today, and understanding their culture was key in the negotiations taking place. There was a valuable trinium deposit nearby that might yield benefits to the SGC.

Reaching out, Daniel gently lifted the box and turned it, delicately examining the carved surfaces with the tips of his fingers. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, bone and wood inlaid around a thin, gold-tinged metal frame.

A sound at the door caught his attention and he put the box down, lifting blue eyes to see Jack lounging in the doorway. Daniel grinned back at him.

"Hey Danny," Jack said easily. "Whatcha doin'?" He pushed off the doorjamb and walked toward the archaeologist's desk.

Daniel shrugged, glancing around the room. Signs of the last three weeks of habitation were evident throughout. No more was the office a mere shell of his personality, but his return was fully reflected in the crowded desk, and piles upon piles of extra books sitting on every exposed surface, including the floor. All his things had been brought out from storage, untouched by the NID and untampered-with. It had been a relief to the scholar to find that nothing was missing.

He still had nowhere to stay, however, and so was living mostly on base. Jack dragged him off at least three times a week, to get him out of the SGC and back into life, as he put it. The excursions were always fun, with the entire team taking off to eat dinner and see a movie, or just to relax together. It was a chance for them all to reconnect, and to heal. And in fact, they were just about due for another.

"Not much," Daniel answered, a little surprised himself.

Jack raised his brows. "No kidding? What happened, run out of artifacts to catalogue?"

Daniel grinned. "No. I've just finished what I had to get done today, that's all." Of course, there was still an immense backlog of work that he really needed to get through, and no doubt everything would be piling up again tomorrow, due to that ridiculous panel that had been employed during his absence . . . Daniel shook his head. He had met these archaeologists and anthropologists, having been familiar with them by name and reputation. He'd had no trouble seeing their superiority, and deflecting the mocking jibes aimed at the last true academic lecture he had given. He'd been confident that he could manage the new members of the archaeological team, despite their negative attitudes.

Those attitudes had changed abruptly when they had found out who had opened the Stargate. Daniel would never have told them, but unfortunately Jack had accompanied him on the ill-fated mission to get to know his new staff, and Daniel counted himself lucky that he had persuaded the colonel to let them leave with their skins still intact.

Struggling to contain a smile at the memory, Daniel shook his head a little and reached for the box once more.

"Cool," Jack commented, coming into the room to get a better look at the box. "What is it?"

Daniel put it down wit a sigh, standing and stretching his back. "Just a puzzle-box. Not very different from a Rubick's Cube, really." The colonel winced at the popping of vertebrae, and focused his attention to the puzzle.

Jack played with the box for a minute, then turned his gaze on the archaeologist. "How's dinner at O'Malley's sound to you?"

Relieved at the offer and the opportunity it posed, the archaeologist fought a sigh of relief and nodded. A thought struck him. Daniel quirked a brow at the colonel. "Weren't we banned from there?"

Jack grinned. "Only for a little while."

Daniel shook his head in puzzlement, allowing Jack to drag him out the door. "How can you be banned for only a while?"

Jack shrugged, herding his archaeologist to the opposite side of the hall before making sure the office door was locked behind them. "Just one of those things."

Daniel felt a grin creep onto his face, allowing Jack to push him down the corridor toward the elevator. "We're going to get thrown out."

"If we are, Carter and Teal'c are going down with us," Jack informed him.

"They're coming?"

"Team dinner."

They lingered in the hallway, because pressing the call button three times in succession had had no perceptible impact on the speed of the lift's arrival. "What if they're busy?" Daniel asked slyly.

Jack gave him a _look_. "Just because you never do what I say doesn't mean that Carter doesn't," he informed the smirking archaeologist. "And what else does Teal'c have to do?"

Daniel shrugged. "Work out, kel'no'reem, visit Ry'ac, read, watch TV -" He was unceremoniously herded into the elevator.

"All of which pale in comparison to a night out on the town, eating steak and enjoying good company," Jack waved off other activities confidently.

"Your treat?"

"Yup," the colonel responded cheerfully, punching the button for the next level down.

"Will wonders never cease," Daniel murmured.

"Hey! I treated the last time we went out!" Jack protested, wounded at the unjust accusation.

Daniel took one look at the innocent expression on his friend's face and snickered. "No," he corrected. "Sam did."

The elevator doors opened on that last statement, revealing the object of their conversation. "Sam did what?" she asked warily.

"Nothing important," Jack jumped in.

Daniel rode right over him. "You treated the last time we went out to eat. It's Jack's treat tonight."

Sam looked pleased at that. "Really? Where are we going?"

"O'Malley's," Jack responded confidently.

"Sir? Haven't we been banned -"

Jack waved off her objections. "They didn't really mean it, Carter," he answered blithely. "We'll get in, no fuss."

The two scientists shared a look. "Whatever you say, sir," Carter replied, a smile tugging at the sides of her mouth.

Tracking Teal'c down wasn't difficult at all. It was harder to haul him away from his workout, but Daniel saw undisguised relief in the faces of the four Marines who were being simultaneously pounded across the mats. The Jaffa was reluctant to give up on his 'workout', but Daniel rather thought Teal'c was inwardly laughing at them all.

Less than half an hour later, the four moved topside. Trading comments easily, the drive to the restaurant was short.

Daniel was openly shocked when they weren't turned away at the door. "The manager will see us here," he intoned certainly, in a voice of doom.

Jack smirked. "No, he won't. I made sure he wouldn't be in today before I rounded you all up."

Carter looked suspicious, leaning over the table and placing her glass of water challengingly between them. "And how, exactly, did you do that, sir?"

Teal'c raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"I called up and pretended to be a buyer interested in taking this place off their hands. His assistant told me he was out of state on a business trip." Smug was the best word to describe the twinkling dark eyes leveled confidently on them all.

Daniel rolled his eyes, leaning back comfortably in the booth. He had been sandwiched in by Jack, with Sam and Teal'c opposite. The other scientist didn't look as squished as the archaeologist felt, despite Teal'c's considerable bulk.

"With a proposition like that, I'm surprised he hasn't come racing back here to take you up on it," he commented.

Jack seemed to search for a response to that, and in lieu of finding anything to say, grabbed for his menu. "Prime rib, king cut," he muttered loudly.

Sam winked at Daniel, who grinned cheekily.

Absorbed in their menus and ordering, Daniel enjoyed the lackadaisical conversation, even though it was coded as a result of their location. But he had come to a decision recently that he had been meaning to talk about with his team, and this seemed like the time for it.

He waited, until the plates had been cleared and a cup of coffee sat in front of him. The waitress came with the tally, and Jack discreetly handed her a credit card. It was now or never.

"I've been thinking," he began slowly, fingers tracing over the handle of the mug on the table.

"Be shocked if you ever stopped," Jack rejoined immediately, sipping at his own Irish coffee.

The expected smile was slow in coming, and the playfulness slipped out of the air around them. It was replaced by a cautious silence all too familiar to the members of SG-1 recently.

"About what, Daniel?" Sam asked quietly, bringing her eyes to his face.

Daniel, as ever, refused the easy way out, and locked eyes with his friend. "I want to go through the 'Gate again," he admitted forthrightly. His voice was low, the archaeologist aware as ever of their surroundings.

Instant smiles wreathed the faces around him. Sam grinned, and Jack beamed happily. Teal'c blinked in acknowledgement, the corners of his mouth curling up.

"Great! I'll have you back on SG-1 as soon as I call the general and -"

Daniel shook his head, raising a hand to forestall any comments. The serious look on his face bled away any joyful emotions the others were feeling. "I've already talked to General Hammond," he told them quietly. "I've decided that it would be best if I joined another team – at least for awhile."

Silence dropped between them, thick and stifling.

Jack nodded slowly. "Okay, Danny."

The archaeologist blinked. "Okay?"

Jack spread his hands. "Okay."

Daniel stared, almost incredulously, at Sam and Teal'c. "Is this okay with you?"

Teal'c looked the other man straight in the eye. "I am not pleased that you will not be rejoining SG-1, Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa admitted forthrightly. "But I believe that you need the time and space to heal. I would not begrudge you that chance."

A flush crept into Daniel's cheeks; ever a man of piercing insight, he was nonetheless uncomfortable having his own true motivations laid bare. Still, he did not flinch from the truth. "Thank you," he answered. Blue eyes searched Sam's face next.

The scientist looked a little sad, but she smiled at him. "Teal'c's right," she told him. "Besides, it's not like this is permanent."

Daniel nodded, still playing with his coffee.

Jack grinned. "So, do you know what team you'll be getting?" There was a bit of a hard look in his eye, despite the smile.

Daniel managed a smile at that. No doubt Jack was going to rag the commanding officer of his new team to take care of the archaeologist. Teal'c looked ready to back him up, and Daniel could see Sam mentally compiling a How to Care for Your Archaeologist list. His new commander's life would be hell.

Or not.

"Actually," he said lightly, "SG-2 recently had a slot open up on their team. Their acting diplomat/archaeologist, Ana Moreno, is on maternity leave."

Jack stilled, stared at him. "Ferretti?" he managed at last. "You're going to be on Ferretti's team?"

The one officer on base that both Daniel and the General knew Jack wouldn't be able to browbeat into intimidation. Not that he wouldn't try, but Ferretti would give back as good as he got. Besides Carter and the General, there wasn't any other member of the military on base that Jack trusted more. SG-2 was really the best choice for Daniel's return to the field.

They were another first contact team, but had seemed to have a lucky streak that precluded them from a record like SG-1's. They'd seen their share of violence, but it was nothing like the events that had conspired to tear apart the SGC's premier team. Some might put it down to luck; Feretti put it down to his men's skill, and Jack attributed it to the ability of the commander.

Jack, contemplating these events, took a big swig of his Irish coffee. "Good choice," he managed, before his voice dropped to a whisper. "Ferretti. _Why_ did it have to be _Ferretti_? I'm _never_ gonna live this down."

Sam wasn't smiling, precisely, but the twinkle in her eyes grew at the colonel's subvocal moan. "Lose a bet, sir?"

Jack glared at her. "Nothing you need to worry about, Carter."

"Indeed," Teal'c added. "I myself lost thirty dollars."

Daniel tossed him a surprised glance over his coffee mug. "You bet Ferretti?" The idea boggled the mind.

"Indeed," Teal'c told him darkly. "I placed a wager with Major Ferretti."

Daniel's eyes narrowed at the lack of details. "And?"

"We lost," Jack interjected, coming to the Jaffa's rescue.

Even Sam looked a little shifty.

Daniel held back a smile, reaching into his pocket. He came up with eighty dollars in cash, and thumbed through it speculatively. "It wouldn't have been on how long it was going to take me to get back through the 'gate, would it?" he asked innocently.

Teal'c raised a brow, and Sam flushed guiltily. Jack sputtered, shocked.

"Lou cut me in on his take," Daniel told them light-heartedly, pocketing the money once more. He surveyed the expressions around him; amused outrage seemed predominant.

Jack threw up his hands, a grin on his face. "I shoulda known," he groused. "I've never seen Ferretti so smug."

Daniel smiled serenely, contentedly sipping the last of his coffee. Plans of revenge against his new team leader flew through the air, thick and fast. Settling his mug down in front of him, he listened in relief to the relaxed banter. He was a little surprised how easily they had accepted his decision. Perhaps he had expected more argument. But he was encouraged by their support, as he hadn't been when he had first resigned from the SGC, months ago. It showed that they wanted him to do this his way. It gave him hope.


	18. Chapter 17

Daniel walked into the 'gateroom, and pulled up short in surprise. Not only was most of SG-2 waiting for him, but all of SG-1 was present as well. The dialing sequence had already begun, chevrons locking loudly. He took a few steps closer, a puzzled frown on his face. "Guys? What's up?"

"We're here to see you off," Sam smiled, enfolding him in a hug.

It was his first mission back through the 'gate, a routine follow-up on a diplomatic treaty that had fallen into place about a week ago. Daniel had done the preliminary work on the document, and translated the puzzle-box that had given them several key insights into the culture of the people of PX9-817.

Carter stepped back, glancing from him to the 'gate, and back again. He smiled at her, and Jack slapped him on the shoulder. "Knock 'em dead," he suggested.

Teal'c simply inclined his head.

"Thanks, guys," Daniel returned, a shy smile on his face.

Ferretti was good enough to pretend that he didn't see how much this meant to them, and didn't give SG-1 any grief about being there. "Ready to go?" he inquired, glancing at Jack with knowing eyes.

"Get outta here," the colonel admonished him with a grin.

The final chevron locked and the wormhole _whooshed_ into existence. Daniel stared for just a minute, wondering how he had ever given this up. Ferretti paused on the ramp, looking for him. "C'mon, Jackson."

Daniel shook his head, grinning, and strode up the ramp, never breaking stride as he disappeared through the event horizon.

SG-1 had a habit of getting simple in-out missions that morphed into catastrophes on a global scale. SG-2 . . . didn't. The simple arrival and follow-up talks about the treaty were just that, and no more threatening than a trip to the grocery store. Despite that, not once did Feretti let his guard down, nor did Eric and Phil, the other two members of Ferretti's team.

Daniel was a bit surprised by the smoothness of the mission; first time out with a new member notwithstanding, they worked well together.

Post-mission physicals were concluded without a hitch. The debriefing was likewise swift and painless. To Daniel's surprise, Jack was leaning against the wall outside the briefing room. Splitting off from SG-2 with a grin and a word, Daniel raised a brow at the waiting man.

"Hey," the colonel called easily. "How'd it go?"

"In and out," Daniel shrugged. His first time back through the 'gate in months had been the best of what he remembered about the SGC. It had helped.

The slight awkwardness between them eased as they made their way to Daniel's office. Dropping into the chair behind his desk, Daniel stared at the piles of paper that were waiting for him, and booted up his computer. Jack was fiddling once more with the puzzle-box, which he soon discarded in favor of poking through piles of books on the table in the middle of Daniel's office.

Daniel was buried in his post-mission report, and had completely forgotten Jack's presence, when a question caught him by surprise.

"What's this?"

Daniel glanced up. His fingers stilled on the keyboard. The archaeologist matched Jack's innocent look with a skeptical glare. "That," he said tartly, "is a katana. As you very well know." Jack's 'stupid' routine drove him crazy, it really did. The colonel was by no means as empty-headed as he liked people to believe, and in reality was downright sly and manipulative. This was one of those times.

Senichi's katana rested in the colonel's hands. Jack fiddled with the hilt, rubbing his palm along the tightly wound cord. When Daniel saw his fingers curl around the hilt, he stood to forestall what Jack was about to do.

"Don't," he said quietly.

Jack looked at him, puzzled.

"Don't draw live steel," Daniel reminded him. "Unless you're prepared to kill with it."

Jack nodded, and slid two inches of the blade from the scabbard. He paused, examining honed steel. "It looks different."

Daniel nodded, rounding the desk to stand by the colonel's side. "I cleaned it."

Jack looked at him sidelong, a quick glance. "Huh. How long did that take?" It wasn't the real question he wanted to ask, and they knew it.

Much as he never wanted to touch the weapon again, it wasn't proper to leave the blade dirty and uncared-for. Especially for the blood-price it had extracted, and the lives it had won.

"Not as long as you'd think," Daniel answered with forced lightness.

Jack eased the hilt home, and then looked at his friend. "Do -"

"No," Daniel answered, cutting the question off.

Jack looked a little put out. "Fine. But I'll tell Teal'c you said hi," he offered.

Daniel frowned at him. "What?"

"I was going to ask if you wanted to join me and Teal'c in the gym, and referee again," Jack told him. "But hey, you've got other things to do. No big deal."

Daniel raised a brow, but Jack refused to be deterred. "C'mon," he wheedled. "Just for a half hour. It won't take me any longer than that to whip his Jaffa butt all over the SGC."

Daniel smothered a smile. "A half-hour?"

"Fifteen minutes," Jack allowed. "Can't let him know how easily I can beat him. Wouldn't want him to get discouraged. Junior might take it the wrong way."

"Right," Daniel drawled, letting himself be pulled from the office. He noticed that Jack was still holding the katana, and mirth faded from his eyes. "What are you doing with that?"

Jack looked at the weapon he still held, then back at the archaeologist. "What, this? Nothing."

"Really?" Daniel radiated skepticism.

"Really."

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

Blue eyes narrowed.

Jack held up placating hands, on seeing the anger simmering there. "Did you like it?" he asked differentially.

Shock overwrote Daniel's expression. "What?"

"Learning," Jack clarified. Some of the panic, fear – disgust – faded. "Practicing, going to the dojo."

Daniel thought, absently moving into the empty elevator car, staring at the illuminated buttons. "Yes," he admitted, away from the security cameras in the halls, and curious ears that would turn to their interaction with interest.

"So why don't you do it anymore?"

He flinched, looking away. "I was wrong."

"Wrong?"

At the casual tone, his temper boiled over. "Yes, wrong, Jack!" Daniel snapped, bursting through the open elevator doors and out, away.

The frown on his teammate's face said that he clearly didn't understand. Daniel pushed his glasses up, searching for his explanation. "I told you," he gestured at the weapon as they walked. "Don't draw live steel, unless you're ready to kill. Remember?"

He barely waited for the acknowledging nod. "But what I didn't tell you is that I was practicing with a live blade, for months, before P5Y-362."

Jack's brows rose. He might not know much about how a dojo was run, and even less about the one local to Colorado Springs, but he did know that you didn't practice with live blades. It was practically begging for a trip to the ICU. But if you did . . .

"And then you killed someone," Jack murmured, a step closer to understanding his linguist.

"Senichi. Yes, I killed him," Daniel bit out. No bitterness there, just sorrow.

Jack winced. It all had to come back down to that damn mission, didn't it? The straw that broke the camel's back. "But how were you wrong?" Careful, or it would break more than it would mend.

"I made a mistake," Daniel admitted tiredly. "I let Jiro give me the blade, train me in steel-on-steel."

Jack frowned. "You 'let' him? Isn't it the sensei's decision when a student is ready to progress to the next level?"

They had been outside the gym for minutes now, but Jack wasn't worried about Teal'c. He'd let the big guy in on what he was up to before he'd gone to track down their unusually-recalcitrant linguist.

A linguist who at this moment was looking exhausted, and miserable. "I -"

"He knew you were ready, Daniel." Jack leant against cool cement, lowering his voice.

"I wasn't."

It was not the sort of thing he could ease into. But Daniel had changed a lot since he had joined the SGC. Jack had never had reason before to wonder at Daniel's familiarity with guns. Such knowledge was a constant in his world, and it had taken time for him to realize that for a mild-mannered scholar, that kind of experience wasn't typical. As for the archaeologist's ease with bladed weapons, well, he was only just coming to terms with it.

Even so, this didn't mean that Daniel had ever been prepared to take a life. And Jack could see how in the scholar's mind, guns would always be associated with danger and death. He had fired a weapon so many times, and been fired on in return, that there was no separation of one from the other. But Daniel had practiced swordplay as an art, a way to focus mind and body, and train. It had been a comfort to him, a challenge and a source of release from the violence of his job and life. To have that brutally ripped away, and replaced with fear and blood . . .

Jack shook his head. "You were, Daniel."

"And how do you know that?"

Jack met the challenge, knowing that it would hurt them both. "You've killed, Daniel. It . . . shows."

Blue eyes widened, a soft gasp telling him that the hit had struck home. But it was the truth. It wasn't something the average person would notice, but to those with the eyes to see, it was written clear as day. But that didn't mean Jack had to like it.

"C'mon," he offered all the apology he could, guiding the stricken linguist into the gym, and down to a nearby bench.

The place was deserted but for Teal'c, who approached immediately. "Daniel Jackson?"

"It's fine, Teal'c." His face was pale, and he gripped the edge of the bench with white knuckles, but Jack heard steadiness.

"Daniel?"

A gathered breath. "I understand, Jack." The eyes that met his were clear, full of a saddened comprehension.

And the colonel breathed his own sigh of relief at the sight. Daniel hurt, but it was a cleansing pain. It would take a while to move beyond this, but they had taken the first steps.

Jack moved on to the mat, then, and Teal'c slowly followed. As they stretched and traded barbs, Daniel focused on what had and hadn't been said. He could understand it now, with distance. It would never truly leave him, but just as the scar on his arm, memory of the death he had dealt would fade, with time. He rather thought the lesson would not.

Watching his teammates wrestle – for a bare moment before Teal'c simply outmuscled Jack – Daniel smiled. Jack hooked a foot up and around, sneaking out of the hold and away, to Teal'c's obvious discomfiture.

He glanced at the weapon, innocuously settled on the bench at his side. He picked it up, turning the sheathed blade over consideringly. A motion laid bare steel across his palms, and Daniel pushed aside the revulsion that came with it. Light glinted off metal, and he tried to pull up older memories, overlying the golden temple of Amaterasu with Jiro's dojo.

It took a while, but his nerves calmed, and he was able to hold the weapon without flinching. Putting bad memories to rest was never easy.

"Daniel?"

The archaeologist jumped, a thin line scoring across his palm. Jerking skin from the sharp edge, he hissed.

"Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c, concern in his eyes.

Daniel looked up, to see his two friends standing over him. "It's fine," he said, looking over the blade once more. Tiny smears of red painted the sharp edge, and he smiled.

"What's wrong?" Jack's brown eyes locked on him, worried by the strange expression on his face.

"I guess I'm stuck with it now," Daniel murmured, wiping the blade with the edge of his shirt. At the puzzled look levied on him, he shrugged. "Old sword-lore. When you've had your blood drawn by a blade, it's yours." And the familiar pull of the scar on his shoulder made him realize that he'd been stuck with this blade long before, and simply hadn't thought of it.

Holding the resheathed weapon, he stood. "Who won?"

Accepting the change in subject, Jack grinned. "It's not who wins or loses, it's how you play the game."

Daniel glanced at Teal'c. "You kicked his butt?"

A brow rose in smug acknowledgement. "Indeed."

The sound of Jack's sputtered protests followed them out of the gym.


	19. Chapter 18

Symbols glowed whitely, inner ring spinning with unstoppable force and sound. The magnificence of it had caught her, the first time she had seen it. To watch it work – Sam didn't much believe in destiny, but she knew this was hers. Right now, though, there was only one thought on her mind. _Just one more, just one more!_

"Chevron Seven . . . will not lock."

Davis looked up helplessly from his console. The team behind him was tense, down to the last man, woman, and Jaffa.

Sam checked over the dialing system one last time.

"I'm sorry," Davis offered to the man staring expressionlessly at the 'Gate.

Daniel shook his head. "It's all right."

Jack swore under his breath, giving one last look to the linguist's disappearing back. "Any chance this is a dialing error?"

Carter twisted to look at him, from where she was running a system diagnostic. "We tried it three times," she pointed out. Blue eyes hardened in determination. "There's probably a problem on the other end."

Jack nodded. "Figure it out," he ordered tersely.

She gave him a terse smile of perfect understanding. The colonel turned and headed after one errant, and frustrated, and God knew what else, linguist.

She focused in on the system. The dialing address that Daniel had brought back to them from the depths of the NID's plottings wouldn't work, and she was going to find out why. Failure was not an option.

"It's . . . fuzzy," Daniel had admitted only yesterday. Back from another mission with SG-2, she'd brought up the idea of trying the address Daniel had deciphered from the mysterious canister during his time as a prisoner of the NID. She'd wanted to send a MALP, do some recon and possibly mission prep. She'd hoped that it might pull SG-1 together for a mission; the four of them, for the first time in months . . .

That it might not work had never crossed her mind.

Daniel was good at his job – there was no one with his aptitude or ability. Even hurt, drugged, or upset, he'd never let the team down. She'd been completely confident that Daniel had had a handle on the translation he'd done; that he'd deciphered the meaning of the message.

When she'd cautiously asked him how it had felt, what he'd remembered, he'd admitted that he didn't, really. He'd as much as admitted that he'd thought the entire episode burned into his brain, scorched there by the power of the drugs they'd forced on him. So he hadn't given it much thought.

When he tried now, though, the sharp edge of clarity that had traced each memory had softened, blurring words and faces into a morass of emotions and impressions.

Janet hadn't been surprised, when she'd asked. Out of her patient's hearing, she had explained, "Neuronal death."

"What!"

She wasn't a doctor, but you didn't need an M.D. to know that that was a very bad thing.

And then Janet had sat her down and told her, straight and dirty, just what had happened to Daniel.

_And the worst part is, most of it's conjecture_. Sam pushed away from the terminal, nodding to Davis on her way out.

Janet came across a lot of strange things from her work with the SGC – viruses and diseases no one had seen before, in addition to the frantic, ER-like working conditions. There were only so many tests she could run to determine what was wrong, and results were rarely conclusive about anything but the effects, certainly not the cause. The fact that it was a homegrown drug narrowed down the playing field considerably, but there was just so much that wasn't known about the human brain . . .

According to Janet, the drug the NID had concocted was a strange paradox. It crossed the blood-brain barrier to bind to ion channel inhibitors in the neurons. In lay-speak, the NID's doctors had jammed the off-switch that allowed the brain to rest. From the effects Daniel had described, Janet also suspected a strong stimulant or two had been thrown in the mix as well, but so far she'd had little luck identifying the possibilities.

So overworked gray matter had been damaged, and they were only now seeing the effects. She stifled a scowl, and the urge to shoot something. She'd be better off applying the frustration to a few of the projects sitting in her lab. Or the main focus of what remained of SG-1, sitting in his office.

Pushing open the door, Sam found Daniel sitting behind his laden desk. He glanced up on hearing her.

"Where's the colonel?" She'd thought for sure Teal'c and the colonel would be here; but the room was empty.

Daniel gave her a thin smile. "Lost them at the commissary."

Not for long, if Sam was any judge. But long enough.

She wandered in, taking a moment to relish the feel of an office cluttered, brimming with books and artifacts and the feel of her friend. Leaning against his desk, she looked down at him. He was avoiding her eyes, staring at a familiar, lined and wrinkled piece of yellow paper.

She picked it up, and scanned the scribblings there. It was no use; they were as indecipherable as before. _That was the point_, she reminded herself. A code only Daniel understood, to protect what knowledge he could.

"I wanted to double-check, see if there was a mistake," he told her softly.

There wasn't.

He shook his head. "Whatever the glitch was, it was made before I wrote this down."

"Daniel." She hurt for him.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sam."

Anger, inexplicable and undeniable, grabbed at her. "It's not your fault." Argument was not an option. As Daniel opened his mouth to respond, she rode right over him. "Did it cross your mind that there could be something wrong on the other end of the gate? We know a lot of reasons why 'gates go inactive." Coverstones, black holes, and massive explosions, to name a few. There was nothing that said that the gate on the other end hadn't been buried or broken. Though given the remarkable properties of naquadah, complete destruction was unlikely. But DHD's were much more delicate than the rings they controlled.

"Yes," he sighed. But he shook his head, twitching the paper from her fingers. "But I keep getting the feeling that there was something . . . ."

"Daniel?"

He pushed up his glasses. "I can't really remember what happened as clearly as I could a week ago." A painful admission, that left her unprepared for the sudden twisting of her heart. "But I get the sense that I was so focused, so – honed in, on what I was doing, that there was something I was missing. At the same time my mind was jumping all over, from detail to detail – but I couldn't see the big picture."

So she asked him again, to describe to her what he could remember of the strange cylinder, distracting him from his blurred memories with questions. As he tried, details seemed to refocus for him, though they slipped just as easily from his grasp. And they did what the two scientists of SG-1 did best; they tossed ideas and conjectures around, fitting their knowledge in pieces around probabilities and what-might-be's.

"Daniel -"

The phone rang.

Sam bit her tongue, moving to the bookshelf while she waited.

"Jackson . . . It's great to hear from you! . . . You found a – you're kidding! . . . . No, I wouldn't know unless I could see it . . . . Of course, I know that, Mac."

Mac was the name of the supervisor of the Ein Gedi dig. Apprehension swamped her.

"No – everything's fine here. . . . . No, I'm serious. It's going to take time, and I don't know that I want to . . . ."

And the silence here was very long indeed.

"Thanks, Mac. I'll think about it. Can anyone take the time to copy out a few pages, get into the city, and fax or email them to me? Ziv? Great. Here's the number -" and he rattled off a string of numbers into the telephone.

"It's great to hear from you. Now get to bed, it's got to be some ungodly hour – Ah. Yes. And tell Galya, who's no doubt the one listening over your shoulder and breathing into the phone, to get to bed as well. Of the two of you, she's much more in need of beauty sleep."

A strangled sqwack of outrage echoed through the room; Sam winced at the high-pitched noise.

Daniel was holding the phone at arm's length with an expression of patient forbearance, and a mischievous grin.

A few teasing barbs and gentle placations later, Sam was alone with her friend once more.

"Daniel, I don't think there's anything wrong with your translation," she told him.

He looked at her warily. "Sam, it's more than likely that something _is_ incorrect. I was . . . most decidedly under the influence when I was working on the damn thing."

"Irregardless, Daniel," she had to point out, "You're usually right."

He winced.

She wasn't proud of herself for that. She couldn't count the times Daniel had been pushed aside, ignored – and then been found right and forgotten, regardless. She had played a role in it, caught up in the race, in the thrill, and in the push of the military. But no more.

"I'm human, Sam," he said softly. "Yes, I've been right about certain issues, and been ignored because I'm civilian, and not military. But I've also been wrong my fair share as well. Don't ignore that because you're in a hurry to rectify your own mistakes."

This time, she was the one who flinched. But Daniel had never shrunk from the truth. She could do no less.

"Maybe you're right," she said softly. "And maybe I am trying to right past wrongs. But then again, maybe we're _both_ right, and there's nothing wrong with the address or your translation."

Blue eyes were untrusting; not of her, but the assessment. The silence was uncomfortable for only a moment, though, before Daniel changed the subject.

"Did you see the MALP readings for N79-458?"

And another half-hour was swallowed by that. Daniel's going on missions with another team didn't bother her, precisely. It was that he felt he had to. But more, it was that she agreed. Sam knew the colonel was watching Ferretti, and SG-2, _very_ closely. Enough to have Lou snapping back at them all, in between bouts of chastising and understanding.

But it kept close tabs on the wayward, roaming, and not-yet-theirs archaeologist. Just for a little longer, she hoped. She could see it in Daniel's eyes; the rebuilding of a broken trust. An echo of it was growing within her, as well. The scar on his arm would never go away, but it was healing. They all were. And she could be grateful for that, at least.

"See you for lunch?" Daniel offered.

Sam beamed. "Commissary, around two-thirty?"

The archaeologist nodded, already entranced by the next project sitting on his desk. It was so good to see Daniel's fire and enthusiasm come back. She hadn't recognized the person they had beaten him down into, and she didn't think she much liked any of the people she and her friends had become, in the process.

She hadn't known what was happening, then. But she could see it now, more clearly than she wanted to, at times. And she wouldn't make the mistake of forgetting, just because it hurt. She'd seen her father do that, watched what had happened to her family because of it – and no way in hell would she stand for it again.

When she had to pry Daniel away from his project, a few scant hours later, with the lure of coffee, she didn't mind in the least.

**

* * *

A/N:** Sorry for the excessive delay. I'm not having much fun with this, since I'm wildly attempting to dig myself out of the pit I seem to have constructed, but I will finish this fic, I promise. 1 chapter left! 


	20. Chapter 19

Daniel scratched at the band-aid on his wrist, itching carefully around the few mottled purple spots that marked where the guard had grabbed him. He looked up, found several worried eyes on him, and didn't know whether to be amused or grateful.

He'd returned from the last mission a little banged up. The bruises, and a few scratches, were the only physical legacy he had. As for the way the mission had deteriorated, well, he'd lived through much worse. It had been more confusion – on both sides – than anything else. He was actually fine, this time. But from the way his former team had descended upon the Infirmary – rather the way he imagined Valkyries descending upon a battlefield, now that he thought about it – the SF's could be forgiven for thinking he was dying.

Ferretti, of course, had started the pool on when Janet'd set him free. And on how many members of SG-1 would be escorted out of the infirmary until she had. While he'd apparently cleaned up on the first, no one had predicted that Janet would lose patience with all three members of SG-1, individually, together, and in various pairs, and boot them into the hallway. Numerous times, as they kept sneaking back in.

Daniel himself had been at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with all the genuine concern being leveled his way. Lack of practice would get him every time. And for some reason, he'd been completely tongue-tied in the face of Sam's relief, Jack's baiting of Janet, and Teal'c's amused brow when they had discovered exactly _what_ he'd done to that guard.

SG-2, predictably, was being incessantly ragged on by at least half the base – and Ferretti had had the fear of Jack put into him, suddenly, loudly, and all over the 'gateroom. Bets were now being placed, by the braver half of his team, as to when he'd be able to show his face before the base's 2IC again. The lowest timeframe, if Daniel recalled correctly, was set at a month to six weeks.

Daniel had gotten them out of the mess of an unexpected first-contact, and SG-2 had gotten them off the planet. All in all, though the meet'n'greet dropped on them from thin air – literally, in this case – it could have been much worse. Thankfully, it had not deteriorated into violence; sneaking and skulking had been the order of the day. But for some rough handling, they were all fine. Hammond wanted to send a return MALP through in a week or so, and put a trained first-contact team on the mission. Not SG-1, given the current . . . well. SG-4 was slated to head out, and their first-contact guru, Charlie Watson, was waiting in Daniel's office for his impressions. Despite the fracas into which the mission had descended, there was still hope for a chance to be able to sample some of the minerals on the planet.

But SG-1 had a different priority. Daniel wanted to address something that had recently come to his attention, and couldn't be ignored.

"They're Goa'uld symbols." He slid copies of the fax to each person at the table – Hammond, Jack, Sam, Teal'c. "But from what I can tell, they're a slightly more archaic version of what is in use today."

He looked to the Jaffa, and Teal'c studied the paper in front of him. One brow quirked, intrigued, and settled. "Indeed."

Jack frowned. "What, you mean like the difference between Old and Middle English?"

Daniel hid a grin. He really did have to talk to Sam about that stunned look she got every time Jack displayed academic as opposed to tactical knowledge. "It's a good comparison," he agreed. "A little more like the difference between slang in the '70's and slang in the '90's, though."

"The Goa'uld use slang?"

There were only so many ways to say _ha'takka_, after all.

Hammond waited until Daniel nodded to Jack before breaking in, sobering the mood considerably. "And where was this found? N79-458? "

"No, actually. Before I left on that mission, I was contacted by Mac and Galya. The heads of the dig I was working on in Ein Gedi, Israel," Daniel clarified.

From scowl on his face, Jack hadn't forgotten. Sam opened her mouth before he could speak. "Was this the phone call you got before your last mission with SG-2?"

She'd been there. "Yes. I didn't get the fax until today, however. Galya was running into a bit of a problem with the translation." Daniel's voice was wry. Just a bit of a problem, according to the fiery-haired Latin professor. Like the whole thing.

"A problem?" General Hammond's expression was neutral. But the man had every right to be concerned. Remnants of the Goa'uld on Earth were thankfully – for the sake of the SGC's secrecy, at any rate – rare. Enough so that the only real problem they'd had so far had been Osiris. Limited as the archaeological record was, and intense as the Middle East was, it was still the most ancient area of human activity, with the best record for preservation, on the globe. Despite current political pressures, a lot of digging took place in various parts of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Israel.

"Apparently, the entire text is written in this script, and it's like nothing she's ever come across. I haven't responded yet, but from what's on this page . . ."

"Do you believe this information important to the SGC, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel pushed up his glasses. "It mentions the god Apollo. And something that I think might be a metaphor for the Oracle at Delphi."

The room was suddenly silent, pieces jostling but not falling into place. Daniel was frustrated – despite the treaty and note he had translated, there was too much they didn't know. And this coming on the heels of the NID's –

The odds were likely that the two were more than connected. But the timing . . . _suspicious_ wasn't too strong a word for it.

"I want to go back to Ein Gedi," Daniel said abruptly, cutting that thought off. Not that it mattered, anyway, in the face of what this text hinted. . . . "I have to see the manuscript, work a translation."

"We have to go back there?" Jack wasn't whining. "_Again?_" Quite.

Daniel grinned a little. "The text is the biggest find this site's come across. Mac and Galya will no doubt use it to snare every bit of extra funding they can get. They'll be set to dig the Essenne site on their own timetable, and won't be rushed by pressure from the Hebrew University. There's no way we'll be able to get near it if we don't go there."

Not to mention the obvious impossibility of moving it out of the country. And if Galya was as intrigued over the writing as her little notes suggested, there'd be no getting it out of her sight.

"When do you need to leave?" Hammond, obviously evaluating the worth of this new piece of information, and approving.

"I'd like to go as soon as possible," Daniel admitted. Aside from what the text hinted at, the language itself was just fascinating. He really couldn't wait to see the whole thing. But if he had to play peacekeeper between the military and the none-too-cowed citizens of the Ein Gedi dig, he'd never get anything done. It shouldn't be too hard just to get Jack to stay -

"There's no way I'm allowing Dr. Jackson to re-enter a hazardous political climate, and an area where the NID are known to have been, without appropriate backup," Jack suddenly spoke up. There was a glint in his eye, and a set to his posture, that Daniel recognized as the colonel at his most tenacious. "General, your permission to take SG-1 as backup?"

Daniel blinked. Just what did Jack think he was –

"Granted." Hammond had just what? Wait – what was going on here? "Dr. Jackson, could you tell us more about the information you were able to translate from what you have?"

Confused, Daniel managed to semi-coherently stammer his way through the rest of the thankfully-short briefing. At least until the end, when Hammond informed them that transportation would be arranged in two days, for the trip back to Ein Gedi.

In the meantime – well.

It looked as if Jack was pushing for Daniel to be back on SG-1. Pushing hard.

But Daniel didn't feel as if he wanted to oppose it. _It's time._

So he found himself in the deserted gym hours later; it was nearly eight at night, and he was staring at Senichi's katana. It was time for this, as well. Time to face the fear, once and for all, accept it, and move one.

_'Fear leads to the Dark Side,'_ Daniel let himself think, before wiping the grin off his face.

Honed steel shone brightly.

Daniel looked the blade over, carefully. He had drawn it before this, to clean it and keep it in good condition. The technicalities of etiquette and insult were precise when they came to weapons; he had no wish to offend, even if he would probably be the only one to recognize it as such.

The weight, even now, was lighter than what he had suspected. Lighter than his own live practice blade. It had been honed to a sharper edge, as well; steel almost sang through the air. _Beautiful._

It was a weapon, its purpose to kill. He had always known that. But after killing with it, the knowledge sat differently.

Daniel raised the honed edge then, and remembered the fight. Replayed it, using body and mind. Thinking, slowly, through every step, every parry and strike. No motion felt off, no decision wrong for what he had faced.

And perhaps that was the hardest knowledge of all.

Blue steel cut viciously through the air, neck-high.

Daniel let his stance relax, and realized that he was covered in sweat. _Out of practice,_ he decided. Very out of practice.

There was only one way to remedy that.

Placing his feet with care, Daniel began the first of the katas he knew, fighting only as the defender. He wasn't quite ready, yet, for the other side of the dance.

Ignoring the sweat, his own heaving breaths, the empty room – Daniel descended into his senses. All he could feel was bare feet on the blue mat, oxygen laboring in his lungs, the grip of cord-wrapped hilt in his hand.

And motion.

Constant, ceaseless motion of turns and parries, riposted strikes and blocks. Intricate as language itself. It _was_ another language – one of body and intent. One that went on, and on, as he pushed himself through a second kata, and a third. Moving slowly, relentlessly. Speed now would only get him hurt.

But there was no conscious thought. Just action and instinct. And maybe he was thinking, about every little move, every breath, every sensation. Daniel trained. It had been months since he had picked up a blade for more than moving or cleaning it.

He slowed even more through the fourth of the pattern-dances, his attention on the placement of each foot, the straightness of his stance, striving for perfection of technique in every motion.

The fifth, he sped up once more. This was harder, his energy and stamina flagging a little. But he completed it nonetheless, and moved on to the sixth. More difficult in complexity and more demanding to the body, he slowed even more, omitting the trickier moves for a time when he was not so exhausted. Same with the seventh, and final, kata.

It was two hours since he raised it before Daniel finally lowered the blade, and became once more aware of the world beyond the mats. Attention to surroundings was always crucial – but attention to more than the immediate surroundings, the immediate area of threat, was dangerous in the distraction it offered.

So he was surprised to see Jack, holding up the wall and hidden in shadows, clandestinely observing him. "Hey, Danny."

"Hey."

Jack tossed him a towel, and he gratefully wiped his face. "So."

Daniel looked up at him. "Been standing there awhile?"

Jack threw a grin his way. "Yea. That was pretty impressive, Dannyboy."

Daniel ducked his head, swiping the towel through sweaty hair. "Yea. Well. . ."

Jack interrupted the silence before it could stick awkwardly between them. "So. You ready to go?"

He could have been asking anything. Maybe Jack had no idea about the depth of his question. But looking into serious brown eyes, Daniel thought maybe he did. And deep inside, the wariness and uneasiness had settled, drifting into quiescence. He felt – not threatened, by Jack's presence. Safe. Home. _Friends._

"Yea. I think I am."

_Fin_

**

* * *

A/N: **So, this is it for now! Ending on an up-note. I don't know how long it'll be until I can turn my attention to _Uchitachi_, but rest assured I'll be working on it. 


End file.
